Transgression
by Crukix
Summary: One by one, I witness the fall of myths, of legends, of gods. As the world mourns and falls apart, I can't help but wonder if I'm the cause or the coincidence.
1. The First Step Leads to Nowhere

_Dear diary,_

…

_Who… am I?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|The First Step Leads to Nowhere | <strong>

**-O-O-O-**

Normal.

It's a strange word.

People define themselves by it so much. They celebrate the fact that they fit into everything by the way they act and the things they do.

They tell me I'm not normal.

All because I don't want to be a trainer.

I watch a troop of _them_ –the pokémon trainers - gather outside the town's gym and wonder just why they'd ever want to travel round the world with the little creatures at their side. Sure pokémon may be useful for some – okay, a lot – of things in our day-to-day lives, but still…

What's the point?

I don't see the fun in wandering around in the wilderness and getting lost every day. It's not appealing to me to entrust my safety to a bunch of creatures that can't speak any word I can understand. Sure, the psychics can, but that requires even more training than normal. There's also the translation collars but they're really expensive and you only ever get one if you get your first pokémon from a big initiative. When the local research labs or the schools give them out, they come with translation collars.

If parents buy their children's first pokémon, they have to pay extra for the collar. Most people that get their pokémon from their parents end up having to scrimp and save just to be able to speak to their pokémon.

I don't understand why people would want to do that. I want my friends to understand me. I don't want to have to try and understand little flicks of ears and the different tones in each growl.

In short, I really want nothing to do with pokémon training.

It's strange – my parents have accepted it. All my friends are always complaining about how their parents don't understand; they won't let them be a trainer because it's too unsafe or they want them to be a trainer so they can experience the world. I don't see why they think it's the end of the world.

My parents accepted my decision almost instantly. Dad was a little upset that I didn't want to travel, but I think that was because he never got to. He says his parents forced him through education. He works at one of the local universities as a maths professor, but he still trains pokémon in his time off.

Mum says it's because you can only regret what you never did.

Mum is the one who used to be a trainer. Supposedly she won tournaments in both Sinnoh and Hoenn when she was younger. Dad says she was still travelling when they were dating. They always make the joke that she competed in an Unovian championship while she was pregnant with my older brother. Mum says that's why he became a trainer.

Jerry left on his own journey about five years ago. He still comes back every so often, when he can. He's always here for birthdays and Christmas though. I think Mum and Dad would go mad if he ever missed any of them. They bought him his first pokémon a year before he set out. On his ninth birthday he got a doduo.

It's still creepy.

It's a dodrio now, but every time I see it, one of its heads always stares at me. I'm sure it never blinks. It just _stares. _Jerry laughs and tells me I'm imagining things.

I'm certain I can't be. One angry head, one normal head and one _really_ creepy head.

It's not normal.

Just like me.

Except I don't tend to stare into nothing and drool on children's heads.

Dad tells me it's just the creepy doduo that puts me off being a trainer. Mum normally tells him that there are creepy people that do that too. She tells him that since I like people, that can't be the reason.

Honestly, there's nothing alone that puts me off being a pokémon trainer. Instead there's just a lot of things, coupled with me just _not_ wanting to be a trainer.

I'm impartial to pokémon. That's what Jerry says. It sums it up the best. I don't mind pokémon on a daily basis. I like using them for things I can't do myself. But I just don't want to go out skipping into the wilderness and have to fend off a hydregion with only a patrat between me and certain doom.

Which is why I was so upset the day I finished school.

**-O-O-O-**

"_Da-ad!"_ I whine and glare daggers at the paperwork in his hands. "I don't wanna be a pokémon trainer!"

He gives me an apologetic look that I know isn't completely true. "I know kiddo, but it's the only way. We just don't have the money to send you to the private school you want to go to. If you collect five gym badges, they'll let you in on a scholarship."

I want to be a historian. I might not want to train pokémon, but their myths have always intrigued me. I love everything about history and the little beliefs people used to have. All the different religions they had, all the different monsters they feared and every mythological explanation they gave for little, important things, like the sun.

I finished the basic schooling everyone has to go through until the July after their tenth birthday. I have the grades now to get into the big School of History in Castelia City. But they say that they can't afford the school's fees and the cost for me to live there or even travel in.

My sadness switches into anger quickly. "What use is your job then?" I snap. "You're meant to be smart and paid a lot, why can't you afford this?"

He shrugs and sighs. "Look kiddo, things aren't as cut and dry as that. My money goes on paying for this house, the car, food, looking after the pokémon, everything like that."

"What about Mum then?" I moan.

Mum's out of her seat and crouching in front of me before I even realise. "Look honey," she says and wipes her thumbs underneath my eyes. "I'm only working part time at the school teaching pokémon training classes. You know that. We send Jerry money every so often too. And it's not because we like him more than you! It's your choice; if you really want to go to this school, you'll have to travel for a few months first. If you don't want to do that, then I'm sure there's another school you can go to."

"But-" I start. Mum gives me the _look_ which means that she's not budging. It stops me speaking and makes me silent instead. I huff at her, fold my arms and turn my head away. "_Fine_," I growl. "I'll go to another, stupid school instead!"

Mum just laughs and pulls me into a hug. "I had a feeling you'd say that. I am really sorry you can't go to the school you wanted, but it'll work out at your new school, you'll see." She stands up, wipes my tears away again and just smiles at me. "Craig rang for you earlier. I told him you'd knock for him once we'd spoken to you."

I glance up at the sudden news. "He did?" I whisper. The disappointment's forgotten under the haze of excitement. "Can I go?"

Mum smiles. "You can go. Just take Kiki with you."

That crushes the joy I was beginning to feel. "But _Mu-um_! Do I have to? It creeps me out!"

"You say that about all pokémon," Dad tells me. "And besides, she's _your_ pokémon, you need to look after her once in a while."

I glare at him. "But I didn't ask for a pokémon anyway."

"We treat you and your brother the same," he tells me. I poke my tongue at him and he pokes his straight back at me. Mum just sighs and calls us both immature as she tries to find some of her pokémon to train. "Take Kiki with you," Dad reminds me before I can turn to leave. "Have fun. And be back in time for dinner!"

My eyes roll almost of their own accord at him. "_Yes dad_," I sigh and quickly leave before he can lecture me anymore.

**-O-O-O-**

Craig's house is weird.

It's the only word that can really describe it. Mum and Dad think so too.

There's nothing outright strange about it – it looks like every other house on the street. A semi-detached house with a normal sized front garden and little gnomes that stare out at the sky. It's the inside that's weird though.

His mum has OCD. Craig says it means 'obsessive compulsive disorder.' Dad says it's because she's an 'old, crazy dingbat'.

I still laugh when he says that. Sometimes he uses worse words than that for people. I know he wouldn't be happy if he hears me saying them around him though, so I pretend that I don't know any words like that. Craig and I sometimes hang around giggling at all the words we know that our parents won't let us say.

But Craig's mum is a little weird. She cleans _all_ the time. Not just little things though – she cleans _everything_. She's the sort of person that will clean and then _dry_ the sink. Why dry something that's going to get wet about five minutes later? She vacuums, varnishes, waxes and dusts everyday too. She won't let anyone in the house if they've got any dirt on them. If she has to then she usually ends up having to clean them even as she's talking to them.

It doesn't surprise me that Craig doesn't like having people round his house because of it. He doesn't mind me as much, if only because my parents know his mum so well. That and I won't make fun of him about it. He knows too much about me that he can make fun of too.

"Hey!" Craig smiles as he bounces out of the door. He's had all his hair cut off again. It makes his face look a bit fatter and his eyes a bit browner. He flashes a big smile and I see he's lost another tooth – when will I lose more? – and it reminds me that the tooth fairy owes me money. He wears a big blue hoodie with a smiling pikachu and shoes that have light up with every step.

"Your shoes are so cool!" I tell him and try to grab at them. He laughs and lifts up a foot to better show me.

"Like them?" he taunts. "Dad sent them to me yesterday."

His dad is a travelling trainer. He usually comes back to town once a month but he's always sending Craig presents. He sent Craig his first pokémon last year too – I'm still amazed he's allowed to keep it; his mum's always going on about how messy pokémon are. Luckily his dad managed to get one without fur, which swayed his mum into letting Craig keep it.

Craig grins at me and grabs my arms. "I've got something to show you!" he tells me.

"Really?" I ask him, already smiling and eager. Last time he found this little tree house a couple of trainers had built when they were passing through town. We spent the rest of the day there, lost track of time and scared our parents by forgetting to come home.

Even now Dad still likes to remind me of that. Whenever I tell him that I'm responsible enough to stay out after dark, he tells me I wasn't responsible enough to let him know where I was.

Craig nods excitedly. "It's on the beach!" he declares. "Follow me!"

He takes off in a fast run instantly. I shout at him, calling him a cheater before I start chasing after him. He leads me out of Accumula town and towards Nuvema. The beach is about halfway between the two and about twenty minutes away from my house.

We slow down quickly to catch our breath but we keep speeding towards the beach. I can't help but wonder what it is he's got to show me. I heard that a wailord had gotten stuck on a beach once – apparently it took a couple of cranes to try and help it get back into the ocean. Mum always tells me that when she was travelling through Hoenn she found a little cluster of islands where people had trained the wailords. Apparently they used to ride on the big whales across the ocean instead of using boats.

I'd rather take the boat. Boats don't spit water at you whenever they feel like it.

"Come on!" I whine at Craig once I see the golden sand of the beach. "You gotta tell me what it is!" I gasp and grab his shoulder. "Is it treasure?"

He laughs and points forwards. "Maybe. I don't know. But it's _cool!_"

It's enough of an incentive for me to keep going. He leads me through the beach and across a weird cluster of rocks. It's a more closed-off part of the beach that most people don't go to. Craig and I have been there a couple of times. There's always really weird things that wash up from the ocean. One time we even found a message in a bottle! We couldn't read what it said in there, but we showed it to my dad. He took it into work and said that one of the other professors told him it was a message from over a hundred years ago!

Whatever Craig's found has to beat that.

He slows down to a walk and smiles toothily at me. "Nearly there," he says. "So what did your parents want to talk to you about? Your dad sounded really weird over the phone."

"Dad always sounds weird on the phone," I say reflexively. It's true – his voice goes all weird and gets higher. There was one time he inhaled a helium balloon and his voice went all squeaky – his phone voice is something like that. Mum laughs every time she answers the phone and speaks to him. "Dad said that I can't go to the school in Castelia."

"What?" Craig stops walking and turns to me. "How comes?"

I shrug. "Apparently it's too _expensive._ If Jerry wanted to go, they'd let him go!"

Craig stares at me for a long moment. Then he smiles and bounces along. "I'm happy you can't go. I mean – it sucks that you can't, 'cause you want to go, but now you won't be moving away and leaving me!"

His smile infects my face. I smile back at him as I realise the truth of his words. "Yeah, you're right. Maybe I could go to school round here! Maybe the same one as you!"

"Yeah!" he cheers. "You can find out all the really cool stories, then I can paint them!"

Craig's a lot like me in that he doesn't want to become a pokémon trainer. Ever since we were little he's always loved painting and drawing. He's better at drawing than my parents! He's going to an art school in Accumula in September. It's always funny to see him bringing home charcoal pictures though – his mum is always really happy when she sees what he's done, then she freaks about how dirty his hands are.

"When's your brother next back though?" he asks me. "He said that next time he's here he'll let me see his pokémon so I can draw them."

I shrug. "Not sure. I spoke to him last week and he said he'll be back sometime this month." I bounce forwards a step and spin round to face Craig. "You've seen his dodrio though, right? Don't you think one of its heads is really _creepy?"_

He laughs. "The one on the left, right?"

I nod enthusiastically. _Finally_ someone that sees it! Everyone else tells me that I'm just imagining things!

"That one creeps me out," Craig says. "At your birthday party it just kept staring at me when I was eating my cake. I didn't know if it wanted my cake or if it just didn't like me!"

I laugh along with him then shudder at the thought of the creepy bird. "I can't tell if it doesn't like you. I thought it never looks at anyone but me with that blank face. I think Jerry's trained it to creep me out. He always said he'd train his pokémon to get me."

Craig laughs a little. Abruptly he leaps into the air and points wildly in front. "We're here! We're here!" he declares and races off once more.

I'm stuck behind him once again. I chase after him as quickly as I can and find he's leading me to a warmer part of the beach. There's little pebbles on the shore and I can see a couple of pokémon out at sea. There's a little krabby that scuttles away from our laughter and a larger one that glares at us as we run past it.

"Here!" Craig announces.

I stop next to him and stare at what he's been talking about.

It's weird.

It's a pokémon.

It's dead.

"What is it?" I wonder and inch closer. Its bright blue and face down on the sand. It looks all shrivelled up, like the way my fingertips go when I've been in the bath too long.

"I think it's a tentacool," Craig says and goes to poke it.

"Don't!" I tell him and grab his arm. "What if it's poisonous?" We glance at the pokémon and both take a step away in caution. "I don't think it's a tentacool," I tell him. "They look like jellyfish. This is kinda like a big, blue splodge."

"I think it has arms," Craig tells me. "And antennae."

"It looks dehydrated," I say and move closer to it again. "Do you think it's safe to touch it?"

He shrugs. "I know!" he shouts as his face lights up. "I'll get Spike to check it!"

He plucks a poké ball from his pocket and throws it onto the beach. It bursts open with a loud explosion of sound and light, leaving behind a strange white silhouette of the pokémon. It forms into a bright blue jellyfish with a white, frilly collar of skin around its neck. Its eyes are black with red pupils and there's a little white crown atop his head.

The frillish floats eerily in the middle of the air and stares at the shrivelled up remains of the pokémon.

"What is it Spike?" Craig asks the pokémon. "Is it poisonous?"

His pokémon floats above the corpse and stares down at the creature. It makes a sound, almost like its humming before it turns to Craig and shakes its head.

"Not poisonous, huh?" he whispers. "Do you know what it is?"

Again it shakes its head.

"Oh well," Craig sighs. "Thanks pal. Do you wanna go for a swim for a little bit?"

The pokémon makes a little sound and floats down to the sea. I shudder as it goes past me and chills the air just a little. The only reason why Craig's mum let him keep the pokémon was that it was ghostly and so didn't need to be in water all the time. It can just float through the air and even through the walls sometimes. In fact, his mum loves it for that – every time it floats through something it leaves a little wet splodge. His mum often uses it to help wash the walls. And then she wonders why the paint seems to be smearing.

"I think it lived in the ocean," Craig says as he crouches down and pokes the shrivelled up dead thing. "Hey!" he leaps up and grabs my arms. "Your dad might know someone who knows what this is, right? Have you got your phone on you?"

I nod quickly and grin back at him. "Yeah, right here," I say as I dig into a pocket. "We should flip it over; see what its face looks like."

"On three?" Craig asks me. I nod and crouch down next to the thing. It smells like the ocean; the salty air and water, all in one. It feels like a prune – like Grandma's skin! We put our hands underneath the thing's side and count down together.

We flip it over and send sand flying everywhere. The sand rains down over us both and we laugh as it gets stuck in our hair and eyebrows.

The weird pokémon has a big red jewel in the middle of its chest. There's two blue marks above its eyes. But the eyes themselves are weird. They're all cloudy and just staring out at the sky, but it's like they can't even see anything.

It makes me shudder in fear.

"Take a picture!" Craig instructs me. "Come on! You're dad's gotta tell us what this is!"

I nod and quickly snap a shot of the thing on my phone. As soon as I've got the picture I turn away from the strange thing and try to find a warmer spot to go to.

"What's the matter?" Craig says from behind me. "Are you _scared_ of it?"

"No!" I bite back. "I just… don't like it, is all. It's weird. Its eyes are dead and just staring. It freaks me out. Can we go now?"

"Okay," he says with a swing of his arms. "They've got a new machine at the arcade now too! We should try it out!"

I smile at him. "Sure," I say. It sounds like a brilliant idea. Anything to get away from the weird, dead pokémon.

**-O-O-O-**

I wake up late the next day. It's so nice to be able to sleep in and not have to bother with getting ready for school, for once. I crack open an eye enough to see the time on my clock and decide it's not worth getting up just yet. Dad will be at work and Mum will be leaving soon enough. It means they'll leave one of their pokémon in charge of the house while they're gone.

As long as it isn't Dad's mr. mime. That thing scares me.

I finally pull myself out of bed and get ready almost twenty minutes later. Mum's just getting ready to leave as I get downstairs and throw my towel in front of the washing machine. Mum glares at me until I sheepishly pick it up and place it in the dirty washing basket.

"You playing with Craig again today, honey?" Mum asks me as she puts her earrings in. She seems a bit weirder today than normal. She keeps looking at the garden door. I don't know why. I guess that maybe she had a row with Dad while I was asleep or something.

I shrug and pour myself a bowl of cereal. "Maybe. Not sure yet. I might go round there after I've eaten and see if he's in."

"You could ring him," Mum suggests. "Remember that you need to look through a couple of prospective schools for when Dad gets in. He wants to get you registered and enrolled in a school tomorrow, so you'll need to know where you want to go by the time you go to bed tonight."

"What about the school Craig's going to?" I ask around a mouthful of cereal.

Mum glares at me. "Don't talk with your mouth full," she scolds. "And I'm not sure. I think that's mainly for teaching art. They might teach history on the side, but I can't be certain. I can ask some of the teachers at work if they know anywhere good, if you'd like?"

"Okay." By the time I've finished my breakfast Mum is only just ready to leave. She smiles down at me, checks to make sure I've got my keys and that she has her pokémon with her before she shuts the door behind us. "I can give you a lift to Craig's if you'd like? It's on the way to work anyway."

I glance up at her. "In the car, right? I don't want to ride on your pidgeot again. It flies too fast."

Mum laughs. "In the car," she promises me. "Is that a yes then?"

"I suppose so," I say with a smirk. She smiles at me and unlocks the car for me to get in. It smells like fur inside and I see the bright red hairs her arcanine has left behind. Mum sighs and says that she'll have to clean it tomorrow. She checks that I have my seatbelt before she starts the car and drives to Craig's house.

"I really am sorry you can't go to Castelia," Mum says. "I know how much you wanted to go there."

I sigh and stare out of the window. "It's okay. I wouldn't have known anyone there anyway. At least this way I might still know some people from school."

"That's the spirit," Mum reassures me. I smile back at her and then turn around to watch out of the car window again. We pass through a few streets before we finally pull up just outside Craig's house.

"That's odd," Mum says. "Since when did Emma ever leave her front door open?"

Emma is Craig's mum. I never call her by her name because Mum always says it would be rude. I always call her 'Craig's mum' or 'Mrs Porte.'

"Maybe she's vacuuming the grass again?" I joke. It's happened before – we went round to their house for dinner to find her attacking the front garden with her vacuum cleaner. She said that the grass wasn't clean enough for guests to see.

"Maybe," Mum says. Her face is creased up into a frown. "I'll come with you to the door," she says. "Make sure I know what you're up to. If Craig can't come out, I'll give you a lift back home."

I nod. I know I won't be able to convince her otherwise anyway – Mum's wearing the face that means she's not going to take no for an answer. She hops out of the car after me, locks it and stays a step in front of me as we walk up to Craig's house.

"Emma?" Mum shouts through the open door. "Emma?" she shouts again as she pokes her head into the house. "Are you in? Craig?"

I spot something out of place instantly. It's enough to make me stop and grab my mum's hand. "Mum," I whisper. She glances down at me and I point forwards.

The hallway is a _mess_. Not just a general damage by living mess, but a full blown disaster. There's a muddy footprint on the floor, things have been broken and smashed and there's a really weird stain on the wall, sort of like it's been burnt.

Mum curses. My head shoots round to her as shock and terror flood me. Mum never curses, not unless she's really upset or angry, or something bad's happened.

"Stay behind me honey," she says and squeezes my hand. Her free hand goes for a poké ball and releases the creature inside. A large blue penguin appears from the ball, its head adorned with a golden, three-pointed crest. Its flippers look like they're lined with blue metal and its feet are a bright orange.

"Keep an eye out, Jake," Mum tells her empoleon. "Something's not right here."

Her pokémon nods and scouts the nearest room. Mum follows closely behind it, her eyes darting around her head constantly. I squeeze her hand and want nothing more than to be out of there. I hope silently that Craig and his mum are playing a trick – that they're going to leap out any second and scare us half to death.

"Can you hear anyone in here?" Mum asks her pokémon. It stands completely still for a second, raises its head to the roof and then shakes its head. Mum bites her bottom lip and glances around the living room. I thought the hallway was a mess, but the living room is so much worse. The chairs look like they've been torn through by little holes. I don't know what they are but Mum seems to instantly. She presses me into her and tells me not to worry.

But all I can do is worry. I worry about why the house is in such a mess and _what's happened to my best friend?_

"Come on honey," Mum says. "Let's go back home. I'll ring the police and let them know something weird's happened here."

I nod into her stomach and hold her a little bit tighter. She squeezes me and tells her pokémon to lead the way out. It seems to take forever until we're back in the car and Mum's starting it up. I don't even remember her recalling her pokémon before she's driving back to our house.

She rings the police on the way. Once she's given them all the information she knows she rings her work and tells them that she won't be able to come in today. I guess they ask why when she tells them that a friend might have hurt herself.

When we're back inside our house, Mum's pacing once she's made me a hot chocolate. "Did Craig say anything to you about going on holiday?" I shake my head. "Maybe if his dad was coming back or something?"

I shake my head again. I bite my bottom lip as I think back to the weird, dead pokémon we found yesterday. If Craig's mum knew, I wouldn't' be surprised if she freaked and took him to the nearest hospital to have him medically cleaned.

Mum seems to know that I'm thinking about something. "Do you know something, honey?" she asks me. "Did Emma say something to you?"

I shake my head. "I-we… yesterday, Craig and I found something on the beach." Mum raises an eyebrow at me, clearly not impressed I haven't mentioned this sooner. "It was… I don't know what it was. But it was a pokémon. And it was dead."

"You didn't touch it, did you?" Mum asks me instantly.

I scratch my arm sheepishly. "Well, we had to flip it over to see what it was, so yeah."

Mum curses and slams her fists down on the table. "How many times? How many times have me and your father told you not to touch anything like that? Who knows what could have killed it?"

I feel myself start to well up. "B-but," I start to sob. "We didn't know what it was and we thought that if I could show Dad, he'd be able to tell us! I-I just wanted to know what it was!"

Mum sighs and sits down opposite me. "I'm sorry sweetie," she says and grabs my hands. "But you should know better than that. What if something had poisoned it and it transferred over to you?" She gives me a little smile as she squeezes my hands. "Now you said that you wanted to show Dad it. Were you going to take him there later today?"

I shake my head. "N-no. I took a picture on my phone." I glance at Mum and see the look in her face. Reluctantly I pick the phone out of my pocket, select the picture and hand it to her.

She smiles her thanks at me then looks at the phone. Instantly all the colour drains from her face and she drops it on the table. She lets go of my hands, leaps to her feet and stares at the phone as if it were a ghost.

"M-mum?" I ask uncertainly.

"Give me a moment," she says shakily. "I need to ring your dad. Once I do, you're going to tell me everything you know about this, alright?"

I nod and can't help but wonder how much trouble I've gotten into.

**-O-O-O-**

Dad's back home within the hour. He's white as a sheet and keeps sharing little glances with Mum that I don't understand. I repeat everything I know to them for what feels like the hundredth time. It only seems to make them panic even more.

"You said you and Craig found this pokémon?" Dad asks as he paces the room. "That was yesterday? Then today you went round his house and found it a complete mess, with him and his mum gone."

I nod silently.

"You know what Emma's like, Joe," Mum says quietly. "Everything always has to be clean. She's ended up cleaning _our_ house when she came round for coffee before, remember?"

He sighs and runs a hand through what remains of his hair. "I know," he says quickly. "But… this is unreal. This can't be unrelated."

I frown at them both and realise I'm missing something. "You're not telling me something."

Mum shakes her head quickly at me. "Of course not honey. We're-"

"Carol," Dad says quietly. "We shouldn't keep this secret."

Mum glances sharply at him. Finally she sighs and looks back at me. "You know I'm originally from Sinnoh, right?" I nod. "We have our own set of myths and legends about pokémon there. One of them is a pokémon known as a phione. It's meant to be a creature of pure water and meant to be the child of manaphy – a pokémon that's meant to be able to read the hearts of creatures as easily as you or I read the daily paper."

Mum takes a breath and hugs herself. "That pokémon you found on the beach yesterday. That was a phione."

A little bit of me jumps for joy at finding out what the pokémon was. Craig and I didn't just find _a_ pokémon, we found a _mythical_ one! I want nothing more than to run round to his house and tell him the good news.

Then I remember what's happened at his house.

Dad sighs and squeezes Mum's shoulder. "Last night there was a lot of noise outside. Kara was barking and growling at something or someone that we couldn't see."

Kara is Mum's arcanine. It's older than me and been with Mum since the days she travelled through Kanto.

"We found Kara this morning, passed out in the woods nearby," Dad tells me. "We all know Kara; she wouldn't just randomly go to sleep if she thought we were in danger. We found little holes on the side of her body, like she'd been shot with a dart. Whoever was here seemed to have been chased away by your mum's pidgeot and my kadabra."

"If that happened here," Mum says in a whisper. "The same night as you find a phione… the night before we find Emma's house in such a state… we can't be blamed for leaping to a hasty conclusion."

"Someone doesn't want people knowing about the actual existence of phione," Dad says. "If people find out, they'll be scouring the globe for any of the other legendaries. There's already been enough attempts to find and capture them. Definitive proof would tip everyone over the edge."

Terror builds inside me. It's new seeing my parents so afraid of something. It's new and I don't like it.

"Are you sure?" I ask them, hesitantly. "Maybe you're just overreacting?"

Dad makes a face and calls his kadabra in the room. It sits down and waits attentively for his command.

"You know Emma's place, don't you Bruce? I need you to teleport there – stay out of sight and see what's going on. There should be police there; see if you can listen in on what they're saying."

The kadabra growls and disappears with a flash of light. Mum and Dad look more anxious than ever; they're both turning whiter by the second.

Finally the pokémon appears back in the room. Its sudden appearance makes us all jump. It looks at Dad, its eyes shining blue as it tells him what's going on.

Dad swears. "Suits," he tells Mum. "The police said it looks like suits had gone through the place."

"'Suits'?" I echo, confused. "Don't you wear one to work though, Dad?"

"Not that sort of suit, hon," Mum tells me. "You remember Uncle David?"

I nod. Uncle David was Mum's brother. He always seemed to be jumpy whenever he was visiting, almost like he was expecting something bad to happen. Mum says that was because of his work – he always had to be aware and ready, whenever and wherever. They never told me his job, nor did he.

He died about six months ago. He was shot somewhere in Hoenn. I don't know any more than that.

"David worked for the police," Mum tells me. "In one of the armed-response units. If there was something big, like a drugs bust, he'd be one of the people ready and waiting with a machine gun to take down the bad guys. He always said that the suits were people not to be trusted – they had clearance given to them straight from the government and could make people disappear overnight."

My mind reaches the same conclusion my parents have. "These people made Craig and his mum disappear?" It breaks my heart to know something like that has happened. My heart and stomach shatter when I realise it could happen to us too.

"We're gonna have to disappear," Dad says as he rushes around the room. "What happened to Kara last night wasn't an accident. They can't let it get out that people found a phione – they'll be freaking and thinking that the kids could have been exposed to anything. Remember how much they tried hunting down the kids that managed to catch the dragons here a while back?"

Mum nods silently. Her face betrays the panic she's trying so hard to hide. "Where can we go?" she asks. "What about Jerry? We've got to let him know!"

Dad stops moving and thinks for a second. "I'm not sure where we'll go. I'll send Bruce to find Jerry; he can tell him what's going on. Jerry's in Viridian in Kanto at the moment, isn't he?"

"He was there when I spoke to him last," I tell him. "He said he was going towards Pewter for a badge there."

"We'll tell him to wait around Cerulean," Dad says. "We'll send a letter to the pokémon centre there for him to pick up. It'll let him know completely what's going on and a new number for him to ring us on."

I'm as confused as ever. "Why would we need a new number?"

"They can track the numbers easily," Mum says. "They can trace your phone to see where you are and even who you've been calling. David knew a lot about it. We're lucky we have pokémon – if it wasn't for them chasing away whoever came last night, we probably wouldn't be here right now."

Again I feel myself start to well up. It's all my fault after all. "I-I'm sorry!" I sob. "If Craig and I hadn't found the pokémon, we wouldn't be doing this right now! You guys wouldn't be afraid and Kara wouldn't have been shot and Craig and his mum wouldn't have gone missing!"

Mum wraps me in a tight hug and shushes me as she rocks side-to-side. "It's okay sweetie," she tells me. "You didn't know this would happen. None of us would have thought this would happen. But it doesn't matter. You and Jerry, you're our children. There's nothing we wouldn't do for you two, you know that. It's just safer to be on the move right now."

I realise that I won't be able to go the history school I wanted to. I won't be able to go to any school because my parents are going to be constantly afraid.

There's only one thing I can really do right now, as much as I really don't want to.

"Dad," I say quietly. "You've filled in all the forms for me to be a trainer, right?"

"Yes," he says reflexively. "Why?" he glances at me and sees the look in my eyes. Instantly he grabs me by the shoulders and shakes his head. "No way kiddo. You're not being a trainer now. If they were able to find out where you lived a few hours after you found that phione, you're not going to be safe on your own as a trainer."

Mum looks deep in thought. "Joe," she says slowly. "It's the best solution."

He shoots her a betrayed look. "How? I mean, how is _this_ the best solution?"

"Think about it," Mum says. "They'll be looking for a family of three on the run. If it's just us two, we'll look a little different. The child they know of is disappearing on a trainer journey." She looks at me quickly. "You'll have to use fake names, is that alright with you?"

I'm stumped for a second. I _like_ my name. It's who I am! But I suppose that if I've gotten us into this trouble, the least I can do is lie to people about my name. I give Mum a little nod and she smiles back at me.

"Good. Joe, listen, we'll tell people that our only child is Jerry. They'll believe it. As long as we're normal – don't draw attention to ourselves but don't become too secretive – people will just believe we're a normal, two-parent family that's downgrading their house now their child's left on a trainer journey."

"What about me?" I ask.

Mum crouches before me again. "Two towns over; Nacrene city. We'll send a letter to the pokémon centre there. It'll be under Grandma's maiden name – you remember that, right?" It takes me a little while to recall it and when I do, I give a tiny nod. "Good. Take Kiki with you, she'll be able to protect you along the way. Try to catch another pokémon or two. We'll tell you in the letter what our new address is and our new phone number. That way you'll be able to contact us. We'll send you a new phone with it too."

"We'll let Jerry know to meet you in Nacrene," Dad says. "It should take you about two weeks to get there – that should be more than enough time for him to travel back here and meet you in the pokémon centre there. Don't argue!" he snaps as I open my mouth. "Jerry's an experienced trainer. He'll be able to look after you. Even if you don't stick with him for long, he'll be able to protect you."

"I know _how_ to be a pokémon trainer," I mutter defiantly at them. "I just never _wanted_ to be one."

"We know, but this was your idea," Mum reminds me. "If you don't want to be a trainer, we can think of something else."

I shake my head. "No, this is better. You two will be safe this way, won't you?"

Mum smiles and kisses the top of my head. "Alright then. Go pack your bag sweetie; we'll wait down here for you. You know what to pack, don't you?"

I nod and recite the list of things I'll need. Dad smiles at me and tells me that the item capsules are in his room, under the bed. They look almost exactly like poké balls but have a large 'I' inscribed across the red top. They can minimise almost everything I need for this journey – tent, books, clothes – they just can't do it with food. For whatever reason, the food goes all weird when it's placed in an item capsule.

I find them and quickly rush to Jerry's room. I find one of his old backpacks in his wardrobe – do those clothes even still fit him? – and run into my room. I manage to sort and pack everything I know I'll need – sensible clothes and shoes, a few books, tent, sleeping bag and some pots and pans.

I stare sadly and longingly at everything in my room I can't take with me. All my posters, my CDs, videos, pictures and most of all – my bed. I really want to take it with me, but I know I can't have a big bed in the middle of the woods somewhere.

I sigh to myself and slip on some shoes. I grab Kiki's poké ball from my desk before I stop and stare at myself in the mirror. It's the last time I'll see myself for a while anyway.

My hair's the same brown colour that Dad's used to be – Mum dyes hers black. I've got Mum's blue eyes as opposed to Dad's brown ones, as well as her pointy nose, but with Dad's smile. My big, baggy black hoodie and equally baggy jeans should be enough to hide myself in and comfy enough that they won't hurt as I travel.

I sigh and look at my phone once more. It lies there, almost sad that I can't take it with me.

I snatch it up quickly and run to the computer. I know that I can't take my phone with me, but I want to keep the photo that's caused this all. I use the computer to move it onto my camera – I should be allowed to take that, right? – and quickly turn everything off afterwards.

I grab Jerry's –_ my_ – backpack and sling it over my shoulders. It's heavier than I would have thought. Kiki's poké ball goes in my front pocket and I quickly find my tattered old wallet.

When I'm back downstairs Mum hands me some extra money and piles my backpack up with food and drink that she says I'll need. She tells me to take one of her pokémon with her – I tell her a ten year old with a big, trained pokémon would be too obvious.

More than that, I need to do this on my own. I've already stolen their lives – I can't steal their pokémon too.

"Here, kiddo," Dad says as he gives me a little present. "I was going to give it to you later, to make you feel a little better about not being able to go to the school you wanted."

I stare at the box with wide eyes. A present? For me? I forget about everything for a moment and unwrap the item with as much excitement as I feel. Inside is a little white box; inside that is a little emerald leather collar with a tiny electronic box attached.

My fingers shake as I pull the gift out of the box.

"I know you're always complaining that you don't like Kiki because you can't understand her," Dad tells me. "I figured this might help you like her a bit more."

I know that if I had received this on a normal day I probably would have hated it. But now, Kiki's my only protection. It has to protect me in the wild. The one little present means more to me than I thought it ever could.

"D-dad," I stutter. I can't think of anything to say. Instead I just fling myself at him and cry into his shirt. "I'm sorry," I mumble between tears.

He shushes me and strokes my hair. "I know kiddo," he whispers. "Don't worry about anything. It'll all work out – you'll see. Take these too." He hands me a little pile of papers. "They're your trainer forms. Take them to the pokémon centre in the next town and hand them to the person behind the desk. They'll give you your licence and a pokédex too. You'll like it – it's got a little thing about the history of all recorded pokémon."

He kisses the top of my head and lets Mum hug me afterwards. She tells me to be strong, to not take any shit – it shocks me a little to hear her say that – then kisses my cheek and tells me that everything will be fine.

I sniff and wipe my nose on my sleeve. "Love you both," I tell them.

"We love you too," they say together. It makes us all laugh for the briefest moment, then we're back to being sad again. I finally manage to tear myself away from them and force a smile upon my face.

Only when I shut the door behind me do I realise the gravity of it all.

I've become a pokémon trainer.

I'm one of the _normal_ people now.

The thought stays with me as I walk down the road. There's so many rules that I have to follow in being a trainer. Every time Jerry comes back home, he always tells me a few more things he's found out. My parents are right that he should help me on my journey. I still feel bad for it though.

Guilt is a heavy weight in my heart. I follow the signs for the way out of town and towards Striaton City.

Something makes me stop at the final gate towards the city's exit. I turn around and look back into my hometown. The cars are still running, people are still walking down the street and everything seems no different than a few hours ago.

Yet it feels stranger to me than I could ever have imagined.

I'm about to turn away again when something draws my gaze. I see a little girl stood on the other side of the street. She doesn't seem to notice me as she stands there, skip rope clutched tightly in a hand. She looks unreal; perfectly straight blonde hair and a white dress that seems brighter than anything I've seen before.

She smiles at the sky and starts to play skip rope. Somehow, even though I'm not close enough to hear, her song drifts around my ears.

"_The hero's a cheat. The liar's a thief. The world can do without them~"_

She stops suddenly and glances my way. Her smile is eerie. Something about her doesn't feel right. I need to know more. She turns away and runs down the road. I call after her to stop and chase her down three blocks and finally round a corner.

I stare at the large brick wall that marks a complete dead end. I know that she ran this way; there's nowhere else she could have gone.

Except somehow, she's _not here._

I frown, poke the wall and realise it _is_ real. With a sigh I turn away and try to forget about the little girl.

Though now I know, without a doubt that I'll never be normal.

* * *

><p><em><span>Disclaimer<span>_

**Pokémon **is a registered trademark of Satoshi Tajiri, Game Freak, the Pokémon Company, Nintendo, etc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit for purely entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, and are not to be reproduced without his prior consent.


	2. Normality Is But A State of Mind

_Dear Diary,_

_I had the dream again last night._

_I remember swimming vision. Screams. Shouts._

_I remember pain._

_I wake up sweating whenever I have that dream._

_My hands never seem clean of the blood I see in the dreams._

_..._

_Whose blood is it?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Normality Is But A State Of Mind|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

"I hate you!"

I glare daggers at my tent. It mocks me as it sits on the floor, refusing to stay up. I know how to put them up – Dad takes us on a camping trip once a year. He says it was in case Jerry or I ever became a trainer, so that we know how to cope on our own.

I've always had some help though. It feels weird to just be doing it all by myself. I know I can let out Kiki to help, but it would probably just sit there and refuse to do anything.

It takes me nearly half an hour to finally wrestle the tent into place. I know that I could have avoided all the hassle if I sleep in just a sleeping bag. But I don't like the thought of that. People might be able to walk near me while I'm sleeping. It just seems creepy.

I sigh to myself and know I have to let out Kiki for the night. It can stay in the tent with me, but I don't want to be alone during the night. I need it around to keep watch and make sure nothing's coming after us.

I take Kiki's poké ball from my pocket and let it out. It forms the familiar shape of a green cactus with bright pink flowered ears and yellow thorns covering its body. It stares at me with bright yellow eyes and stumbles on the spot, two tiny legs hidden under a covering of roots.

It rolls its eyes round to me and gives me an unimpressed stare. I'm convinced the maractus hates me, though I can't find a definitive reason for why. Maybe it's just angry.

"We're setting down for the night," I tell it. "Do whatever you want, but I need you to stay in the tent tonight."

It squawks indignantly and shuffles away from me. I pout as I reach into my bag and find some food. I wonder why Dad never bought me a fire pokémon as I sit down and set fire to some sticks with a match. I manage to cook myself some rice and vegetables without burning anything and sit down to eat it. Kiki stares at me a little and it hits me that I've forgotten to feed it. Sheepishly I reach into my bag and pour some food into a bowl for it. It huffs at me, takes the bowl and remains a fair distance away from me as it eats.

I don't know why it doesn't like me. I don't really like it, but it's my only companion now. Dad trained it for a little while to make sure it's strong enough for such a journey. I know he did the same with Jerry's doduo. I remember it always screeching and attacking Jerry whenever he went near it. He often ended up running around the garden being chased by the two-headed bird.

Remembering it makes me laugh. Kiki glares at me around a mouthful of food. I poke my tongue at it. It hisses something I can't understand. Its collar feels heavy in my backpack, waiting for me to put it on the pokémon. Of course, that means I'll have to get close enough to it to put a collar on it. I've been smacked by its needle-filled arms before. It hurts. And Mum isn't here to help pull the needles out of me.

"Why do you hate me?" I ask. It's weird to sit in silence. Mealtimes with my family are always loud. It usually involves the pokémon fighting over food or Dad being leapt on by his pokémon. Mum's pokémon are a bit quieter at meal times, but they get really possessive over their food – if anything else goes near them when they're eating, they attack. It's weird to go from such a loud environment to this quiet.

Kiki grunts something I can't understand. I realise how stupid it was to ask something from it. I sigh to myself and poke what remains of my food. It just doesn't taste as nice as anything Mum makes. My stomach tells me I'm not hungry anymore and I look at what remains. "Do you want it?" I ask my pokémon.

It glares at me, then at the remaining food. Finally it swipes the remaining food for me and hides away from me once more as it eats.

It strikes me that this will be my life for a while. My pokémon hates me and it's going to be a while before I can catch a new one.

Of course, that means training a new one. As well as actually catching one in the first place.

What if the next one hates me too?

I hug myself as I stare at the fire, mourning the loss of my phone and the way to talk to people. I want to talk to Mum and Dad. I want to hear their voices; to know that everything's going to be okay. Even if it's not, I want to hear them tell me it will be.

I look at the dark red watch on my wrist and stare at the date for the longest time, silently hoping I can somehow move time forwards. I want Jerry to appear and help me out. Being a trainer is exactly as boring as I thought it would be and has none of the amazing tales they always show on the cartoons.

_This sucks._

"Finished?" I ask Kiki as it drops the plate on the floor. It glares as I take them both, toss the remaining bits of food away from my little camp and throw the plates into my backpack. I can't be bothered to find a stream to try and wash them in. I just want to crawl up in bed and wait for everything to be better.

I kick dirt into the campfire and look at my pokémon – my sole conversational companion for however long everything decides it hates me for. "I'm going to bed," I tell it. "You need to stay in the tent with me."

Its face is dark like a scowl and it warbles something I don't understand. Even still, it wobbles into the tent and stands there like a weird bedside lamp. I laugh at the thought of pulling a chord and making its head light up, which only serves to make it glower at me once more.

_Stupid cactus._

It hisses, almost like it can read my mind. I press my hands to my head, frown and try to catch whatever words might be slipping out. I frown back at it, realise it can't learn anything like that and decide that it's just being evil.

"Whatever," I grunt as it plants its roots in the soft dirt. I scowl at it, remember that Dad bought this tent solely because it let Kiki still do that and feel a little pang of homesickness yet again. I climb into my sleeping bag, look at the little missing patch of tent that lets Kiki stand in the dirt and know I'm going to be cold when winter comes along.

If I'm even still travelling then.

But I've got to, don't I? Because of everything with that _stupid_ dead phone-pokémon-thing.

And what about Christmas? Am I even going to be able to go home for then?

And Mum and Dad's birthdays. Jerry's too.

I feel my eyes begin to leak as I pull the covers of my sleeping bag up to my chin and hug it as if it's the only other person left in the world. Everything in my life's changed, all because of me being stupid and touching a smelly, wrinkly dead pokémon.

My life is this; Craig's vanished off the face of the world and my parents have had to quit their current lives, all because of my stupid mistake.

"Ah, poo," I groan. Something sharp shoots into my back and I yelp, nearly leap out of the sleeping bag and glare daggers at my pokémon. It chuckles a weird sound – a constant '_kikikiki'_ that I named it after – as I flinch and try to pull the long cactus needle out of my back.

"Dad's not around anymore, I can swear all I like," I growl defiantly at it.

It hisses something I don't understand and turns its head away. I wonder just why the hell Dad had to teach it to needle me every time I said a bad word and whether or not I'll be able to stop it from doing so.

More than that, I wonder how I'm the trainer and yet my pokémon is the one calling all the shots.

_Stupid cactus._

A needle stabs into the back of my leg.

I'm convinced it can read minds.

**-O-O-O-**

My sleep is stolen from me by someone shaking me gently awake. I roll over in my bed, bat my hand and manage a sleepy grunt.

"Hi Mum," I mumble, eyes still not open, brain still not awake.

Mum grunts something that sounds a lot like the way Kiki sounds. All at once everything catches up with me and I groan, bury myself into my covers and want everything to go back to the way it was.

Kiki mutters something and I groan from beneath my warm not-bed.

"I'm awake!" I shout at it, voice muffled by the covers. It grunts and I hear it walk away, open the tent and leave.

I open my eyes and blink like a noctowl for a good few minutes. I'm certain I never taught it how to use the tent. In fact, if it wasn't for Dad telling me I had to keep it in there, I'd have never even let it in my tent in the first place.

I scowl at the direction of the tent flaps. Dad must have taught it how to use it. Or Mum. One of them committed the traitorous act of letting my pokémon know how to work my tent! I sigh and decide that when I see them again, I'm _so_ going to tell them off for it.

I poke my head out of my covers and find nothing's changed overnight. Kiki hasn't poked holes in the tent and nothing appears to have gone missing. I grunt to myself, manage to get changed and pack everything away without much incident – save for discovering that Kiki's needles managed to leave little holes in my pyjamas.

_Stupid cactus._

I get out of the tent and find Kiki shuffling around outside. It grunts something, points to the floor and shows me a pile of berries its collected while I've been getting ready.

Something like guilt, surprise and humility flutters in my tummy.

"Are those for me?" I ask it.

It gives me a sarcastic expression. I blush and stare down at the floor. "Oh, okay. Thanks. I didn't think you'd do anything like that."

It grunts, skewers a few on longer needles and sits there, eating them. Juices slide down the needles and onto its skin. It reaches over and manages to navigate its prickly skin easily enough to lick the juice off without harm.

I shrug and decide that it's worth trying what my pokémon has brought me. Dad taught it to look after me, I know that much. He wouldn't trust it with me if he thought it would collect berries that would make me poo for a week.

I try the biggest one there is. It's sweet and tastes like squishy pears. I've ate nearly half the pile before Kiki stops me. I look up at it, hear it speak but don't understand it. Finally its message gets across; that we should save some of the food for later.

"Oh, okay," I mumble and quickly pack my tent away. I'm thankful we went on all those camping trips and for all the times that I was made to put my tent away on my own – even if at the time I thought it was just my parents being the most evil things that ever existed.

Once my camp is completely stripped and packed way, Kiki grunts something at me. It points towards the way we've been walking and makes a motion.

I feel a flutter of nervousness come into my tummy. I haven't walked the way Striaton on my own before – I've always been with someone or one of my parents drove me there. When we did walk, we never took this route I'm taking now.

"Um…" I mumble as I stare at my map. "We need to keep heading that way, apparently. Then turn that way here and we should be there." I bite my lip and look at my pokémon. "You think that's the right way?"

It makes a noise I don't understand.

"Whatever," I sigh, stuffing my map back into a pocket. I take a breath, try to bundle up all the nerves I feel and take another step closer to Striaton. Kiki shuffles beside me, my pace slow enough for it to keep up; fast enough to that it has to make an effort.

"I want a puppy," I decide randomly as I see a few scampering around. Kiki makes a dark noise, almost like it's jealous. Or probably more annoyed that I'll make it fight to try and get one. I feel around in my pockets, find no spare poké balls and sigh to myself.

"Oh well," I grunt as we keep walking past them. They stop to look at us as we pass; eyes wide and little tails wagging. They're just so cute that I want to steal one and keep it as my own.

Then I remember the one that _horrible_ girl Sarah in my class had. She brought it in once; it ripped up everyone's work, stole our food from our bags and then did a great big poo in the middle of the classroom. The only good thing it did was pee up against Mr Bradford's leg.

I laugh to myself as I remember it. Kiki gives me a strange look. "You remember Mr Bradford, don't you? He was my Pokémon Studies teacher last year. When I brought you into school that day? He liked you."

The mention of that makes Kiki seem to glow with pride. It tutters something as it shuffles along, needles at the ready to stab me if I curse again.

"Of course, he never knew you," I whisper darkly. Kiki grunts and I feign innocence. It gives me a distrusting look but carries on walking nearby, needles just a little bit more ready to stab me.

"So no puppies then," I decide. "I don't want to have to train it not to pee on me. Or po-go bathroom in my sleeping bag."

Kiki gives me a satisfied look at how quickly I can stop cursing. Needles flashing, its arms sway by its side as it walks in rhythm with me.

"I think that's why Dad got me you. You don't do that; you're a plant-thing. Jerry's doduo was always doing that." I burst out laughing at the mental imagery that blossoms into my mind. "Like one his tenth birthday, when it ran around the house when it had a runny bum! There were white stains everywhere, Mum was going crazy, Dad was screaming at Jerry, Jerry was in tears and the doduo somehow ended up on the chandelier!"

My laugh dies quickly as I realise that my pokémon isn't sharing it with me. I sigh and hug myself, staring at the floor. "I miss those times. I miss everyone. I don't want a flying pokémon. They're evil. Especially one of Jerry's."

Kiki clucks something, like its paying attention. But I see the way it stares out at the forests, watching everything and playing guard. Its attention is elsewhere, like Dad when he reads the paper and Mum stands around talking to him.

Habit forces me to go for my pocket for my phone. Too late do I remember that I don't own one anymore and I can't talk to them. I sniff, try to turn my mind towards other things and decide instead to play out what I remember from class.

Maybe if I get those five badges I'll get let into my school after all.

The thought keeps me entertained as I walk along the grassy pathways. We stop a few times to rest or to have something to eat; once or twice to use the bathroom somewhere in the forest – though only when I'm busting and about to wet myself. All the while I remember what histories I can and try to pick the little holes in everything that I figure out.

"That thing with Team Plasma was weird," I tell my pokémon. "If that man was really raised with pokémon all the time, why didn't he act more like them? He could speak, couldn't he? But he always had an argument ready for everything."

Kiki makes a noise that sounds like disinterest. I shrug to myself and muse over other things in my mind. It's not like my pokémon would be much help in discovering things. I need something old to figure out histories. Like a sigilyph!

Except those are incredibly rare and found only by experienced trainers or pokémon hunters.

Maybe a confagrigus!

Same problem.

"Ah… poo."

Another needle launches into my arm. I shriek, flail uselessly and glare at my pokémon as it cackles in delight at my pain.

_Stupid cactus._

Maybe I should go to another region to catch something. Hoenn have things like claydol and relicanth. Except I'd need water to keep one of those fishies in. Sinnoh has bronzor and ghosts like frosslass and rotom, but they're too hard to train. Kanto has gengars and alakazams, but same problem again. And Johto has misdrevous, but they're meant to be just plain evil.

"What do you think I should catch?" I ask Kiki. It gives me a bored expression and carries on walking without answering me. I pout at it, hope that _somehow _I'll get an answer out of it, but instead I get more silence.

I stop at the sights around me and start to feel a little lost. Nothing on my map says anything about what I should see. It's _stupid!_ I don't see why they can't have pictures, or diagrams or _something_ that will let me know just where I am!

I'm lost.

In the middle of nowhere.

And no one knows where I am!

I start to panic, dream up increasingly stupid scenarios of what's going to happen when my pokémon grunts and points at a nearby sign. I blink stupidly, hand over my thundering heart and it takes me a while to even realise there's writing on it.

Once I do, I manage a little, "Oh," of relief.

Another quarter of mile that-a-way. My nervousness bubbles down into nothingness and I feel even more stupid when I realise that if I squint hard enough, I can just about see the buildings in the far distance.

Well. I feel stupid now.

I hear the sounds of something moving through the tall – over waist-height on me – grass and find another person coming towards me. I breathe a little sigh of relief, know I can ask them for directions and maybe even get them to help me to the town.

I quickly find out he has other things on his mind.

He's a lot older than me – older than _Jerry!_ A little bit of fluff grows on his chin and his hair is pulled back into things that look like rows they use on farms. His skin is like the charcoal Craig often uses in school and he's got a few scratches and slashes over his clothes – little bits of blood too.

He catches sight of me and smiles. Not a friendly smile. Not an evil smile. Just a 'hello-don't-mind-me' sort of smile.

He stops when he sees Kiki and his eyes light up in a little bit of surprise.

"Hey, that maractus yours?"

He has a weird accent I can't quite place. I frown at him, slightly put off by it. I manage to nod and hold Kiki a little bit closer. Whether I'm protecting me or it, I'm not certain. "Yeah. Its name is Kiki."

"Right," the man says. He grins and plucks a poké ball from his belt. "Say kid, how about a battle?"

I feel a smile work its way onto my face. I've battled before _loads_ of times – almost always against Jerry, once or twice against my parents and a few times in school. I know how to battle and I know just how quickly I can beat this guy.

"Sure," I say, smiling confidently. "Go on Kiki, battle time."

It gives me possibly the most interested looks I've seen it give me in a long time and shuffles in front of me. The man backs away a number of paces and calls out something he calls Arthur.

Arthur turns out to be a massive bug. A massive _bee_. With spear-arms as long as my legs!

I back away instinctively from the angry-looking beedrill. It hovers in place in front of the guy, wings buzzing but otherwise not making any sort of move. It takes me just more than a moment to notice the most obvious thing about it though.

"_Eew!_" I moan and point at the insect. "It's _green!_ It looks like snot!"

The man pulls a face. "I'll have you know Arthur's a special beedrill. I'm a pokémon hunter – he was the first strange pokémon I found and the one that got me into all of this."

"But it's _green_," I say, unable to get over the fact.

The man rolls his eyes. "We've established that. So I'll let you go first then."

I smirk to myself, confidence building. "Kiki, seed it!"

My pokémon puffs up, smug as me. It fires little tiny seeds the man makes his beedrill knock away with blasts of silvery air. One or two come close enough to land on the bug but it slices them apart before they can actually land on its face. I frown and try to convince Kiki to aim properly. More little blasts of winds keep knocking all the little seeds away though.

"_Coup toxic_!"

I blink a little at whatever he just said; slightly convinced my ears have gone all funny. His beedrill is attacking though and there's not enough time for me to wonder about words.

"Defend!"

Kiki cackles as little balls of cotton appear all around it. The beedrill's stingers glow bright purple as it charges towards Kiki. It buzzes and finds itself lost in a cloud of cotton, buzzes getting angrier and angrier from within. Kiki laughs and fires a little seed that strikes it on the back of the head. It seems to anger it more and it blows everything away with another gust of silvery wind.

And somehow, it seems all the faster from it.

Before Kiki can react the bee is in its face, stingers piercing its stomach and leaking thick, purple sludge into them. The man shouts out another command I don't understand and the bee drives its bottom into Kiki's leg, pumping more ugly-smelling stuff into my pokémon. Kiki screams and fills the thing with needles, slaps it in the face and even makes a little tear in the wing, but it's not enough.

"Stop!" I scream and recall my pokémon. I stare at Kiki's poké ball, feeling a wash of concern and a bubble of hatred for the man. I glower at him, tears in my eyes as he congratulates his _stupid_ ugly green bug.

"Some pokémon battles are tough," he tells me. "Sometimes your pokémon's going to get really hurt. Maybe you should learn that; we all have to at one stage." He recalls his beedrill and crouches down in front of me. He even _smiles_, despite how he hurt my pokémon. "And as part of that, losing battles means handing over money."

A ball of icy fear builds in my stomach. I fall away from him, feet unsteady and horror on my face. "M-money?" I stutter.

He nods. "Only a little bit of what you've got on you. The sooner you learn this, the sooner you realise just what's at stake in a battle."

I clutch Kiki's poké ball, horrified he's hurt it – _her!_ – so badly and doesn't seem to care about it. And now he wants money too!

"B-but you cheated!"

He sighs and shakes his head. "Type advantages aren't cheating. All's fair in love and war, after all."

I remember Mum telling me something similar.

It makes me realise that I should do exactly what needs to be done.

So I kick the man between the legs hard enough to make him scream. He drops to all fours and I punch him on the nose, smearing my hand bright red with blood. He curses worse than I've ever heard and I do the one thing that makes the most sense;

I run as fast as I can into the city and hope he doesn't follow me.

**-O-O-O-**

I don't know how long I've been running for when I bump into someone. I fall back, land on my backside and hear myself crying for the first time in a long time.

The person I bumped into turns around, sees me and crouches in front of me. I see her uniform; the bright blue shirt and pants with the familiar hat and I know that she's in the police. It means at least she should be someone I can trust.

She frowns and offers me a hand back up. "You okay there kid?" she asks me.

I shake my head, hiccup and manage to sob out a, "No."

"Want to tell me what the matter is?"

I try to tell her exactly what happened. Instead it comes out as a mess of sobs and a long string of words that makes no sense whatsoever.

She sighs and tries a new tactic. "So what's your name kid? I'm Marsha."

I tell her what my name is. She smiles, pats my head, tells me it's alright and offers to lead me to the pokémon centre.

I nod, take her hand and find myself getting a guided tour around the city as she listens to what I have to say, this time whilst actually making sense.

"Some trainers are like that," she tells me once I'm done. "Sometimes it's a good thing; tell a new trainer exactly what they can expect on a journey. But really, trying to take your winnings after it is a little bit more than extreme."

I nod, still with a death grip on Kiki's poké ball. "Are you a trainer too?" I ask her.

"Somewhat," she says. "All police have to have trained and own at least three pokémon. So I know what it's like."

I nod up at her, amazed to hear she's not only a policewoman but also a trainer. Her eyes are bright blue and long blonde hair sneaks out of her hat. "I just started yesterday," I tell her. "I've battled my big brother before, but he's _never_ wanted money when he beat me."

"Some people are assholes," she says. I giggle and she coughs, hand over her mouth. "Pretend I didn't say that. I can't really go around teaching ten year olds how to swear."

"Kiki won't let me anyway," I say, pouting. "It's my maractus. My dad taught it to needle me whenever I say anything as bad as poo."

She laughs. "Parents, huh? Kiki will be fine once she gets to a pokémon centre. A little bit of healing and then they're generally good as new – they just have a scar or two to show for the battle."

"Okay," I say, considerably relieved.

"Besides," she says, grinning, "I think that boy you beat up will have a few scars to show for that battle too. Maybe not physically, but it's not every day a guy's beaten up by a ten year old girl."

I laugh. "Mum has a few fighters. She got them to teach me and my brother how to fight when we were little. My brother doesn't like it because I can beat him up too."

She smiles. "That's good to hear. At least you won't have to worry about anyone if you can beat them up."

"That's what Mum tells me," I tell her. I look at everything going on in the city, glance back up at her and ask, "Why's your name Marsha?"

She grunts and looks down at me. "I could ask you why your name is what it is."

I smile and shake my head. "I don't mean that. It doesn't sound like a name is all."

She smiles. "That's because it isn't. You see, it's a nasty word to call someone that comes from where I do. In some parts of Unova, it's also a name people use for a woman who likes other women. When I started working with the police, they called me that all the time. Now I have everyone call me it, just so that they know I'm better than they can ever be."

I nod along to her words, then ask, "So does that mean you kiss women then?"

She turns bright red and chokes on a cough. "Among other things, yes."

I pull a face. "That's gross." She looks a little shocked. I shake my head and can't get rid of the grossed-out face I wear. "Kissing people is gross. It sounds all slobbery and nasty. Why would you want to do that?"

She laughs. "Maybe at your age, yes. But once you get a little older, you'll realise just how fun it can be. Just… wait until you're about fifteen, okay?"

I puff out my chest and declare, "Kissing sounds gross. And I'm not fifteen for ages yet. I don't think anything that slobbery-sounding could be fun."

She shrugs and smiles at something I don't understand. "Maybe you'll change your mind when you meet the right person." She points with her free hand at the large three story building in front of us, complete with familiar red roof. "Here's the pokémon centre. Take your pokémon to the person working at the desk and they'll make it good as new, alright? And… try not to go around beating up any more trainers, alright? The next one might be able to fight back."

"I'll still beat them up," I tell her.

She laughs and pulls a little card out of a pocket. "Maybe. Either way, this is my card. It's got my name and my number on it. So if you get into any trouble like this again, or you want to talk to me, you just ring this number, alright?"

I nod and slide it into a pocket. "Okay. Thank you!" I hug her before she leaves and wave goodbye to her before I walk into the pokémon centre. Inside it's _huge_ and I feel a little bubble of nervousness work its way up again. What do I say to the person at the desk? I have to say the right thing, don't I? What if I say the wrong thing and they don't heal Kiki? What if they can't help me? What if-

"Can I help you?"

I yelp and look at the woman behind the desk with wide, frightened-lillipup eyes. She smiles at me and guesses, "Do your pokémon need healing?"

"Yeah," I say with a nod. "And, um, I've got some forms I'm meant to give to you too." I fish around in my bag and produce the papers I need, but they're all creased and look like they've been left under my bed for a month. "Um, sorry."

"It's okay," she says, taking them from me with a smile. "When your pokémon's healed we'll call your name out over the announcement system. I'll send your paperwork off to be looked at tonight and you should have it all back tomorrow morning, complete with a brand new pokédex." She types a few things into her computer and looks back to me. "Will you be staying the night? We can give you a free room since you're waiting for your paperwork to be completed here."

Free room. Room means bed. Bed means comfort.

"Yeah," I say quickly "That's brilliant. Thanks."

"Here you go," the woman says after a moment's typing on her computer. "You're staying on the second floor, room ten. Your paperwork and your pokémon should be ready to collect by around eight a.m. tomorrow morning."

"Okay," I say, clutching my room key like its Kiki's poké ball.

"The dining hall's down there, dinner's being served from now until midnight and breakfast runs from six in the morning. Any questions?"

I shake my head. "No, that's it thanks." I smile as she tells me to have a good day and make my way towards the food. My stomach directs me more than my brain does and lets me know that I need to fill it as soon as I can.

When I see how many people there are in the food hall, my eyes widen almost out of my head. Almost every table is taken, filled with people all chatting away to each other. Even in the line for food I can see a number of people all happily talking to each other. I sigh to myself as I pick up my tray, wishing that someone were here with me.

If anyone, it would have been Craig, seeing as how we both wanted to be trainers once. But now he's gone, I'm on my own and I'm still waiting around for my brother to come visit me.

Plus I beat up the one trainer I might have made friends with.

"Chocolate cake or apple pie?"

I glance up at the woman serving the food and give her a look that should tell her how stupid she is. As if she even needs to ask that question.

"Cake!"

She laughs at my enthusiasm, gives me a bigger piece than the others and winks for me not to let anyone else know. I grin to myself, happy with my _huge_ pile of food and then realise that I'm still left with the problem of where to eat it all.

Everyone on the tables is already with someone. They all already seem to know each other and I feel even more left out. I spot only one table with just one person on it and thank whatever's watching me that at least he's my age.

"Hey," I say nervously as I approach the table. "Can I sit here?"

He looks up at me, his face bored. His hair is brown and messier than mine and he has big brown eyes that look as wide as an owl's beneath his glasses.

"Sure," he says, pointing at a seat opposite. "I'm Sean," he tells me as I sit down.

I tell him my name around a mouthful of cake. I glance around, afraid somehow that Mum will appear and tell me off for eating my dessert before my meal. When she doesn't, I scoff the whole thing and let out a burp.

Sean smirks as he pushes a piece of meat around on his plate. "So what pokémon do you have?"

"A maractus," I tell him. "It hates me. What about you?"

"A pansear," he says with a grimace. "It's annoying. All it does is shriek and throw flaming poo at everything."

I snort orange juice out of my nose. Sean laughs as it dribbles over my chin and splashes on my carrots.

Oh well. Not like I was going to eat them anyway.

"Are you here on your own then?" he asks me. I nod even as I try to get the rest of the drink from my nose. He sighs. "Lucky you. I'm here with my aunt. I don't even want to be a pokémon trainer but my mum said its best for me. And she made my aunt come with me along the way."

"That's weird," I say, scrunching up my nose. I imagine Aunt Sally coming along with me on my journey and shudder at the thought alone. She'd go crazy about every sort of noise and spend the entire time telling me about how well her kids were doing and how much better they were doing than me.

_Stupid Aunt Sally._

"Oh great," he says, dropping his head to the table and hiding under his hands. "Here she comes."

I glance around, half expecting an overweight woman in a dress that looks like curtains. Instead a girl about Jerry's age sits down with us. She wears a dull yellow tank top, long bottoms that have little winking machop over them and has her dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail.

"Hey," she says with a smile. "You a friend of Sean's?"

"I, uh, just met him," I say quickly. "I didn't know this seat was taken."

"It's not," she tells me and shoves a whole roast potato in her mouth. "I'm Sean's aunt, by the way. Call me Ali."

It's Sean that lets her know who I am as I continue filling my mouth with food. I find myself confused as he groans and complains about how Ali's embarrassing him. If anything, I think Ali's pretty cool from the little stories she has about her pokémon and the way she bounces around like a hyperactive spoink as she talks.

"I don't even want to be a trainer," Sean confides in me as his aunt chases down the dinner lady carrying leftover cake. "I want to do something else. But Mum won't let me."

"Weird," I tell him. "I didn't want to, but I have to now. Because, um, my parents can't afford the school I want to go to, so I have to get five badges first."

"That really sucks," he tells me. After dinner I spend most of the night in his and Ali's room, watching bad movies and laughing about the silly cartoons on the television.

The entire evening helps me to forget everything that's causing me to be out here, as a trainer.

It's the next morning, when Sean randomly disappears that I remember Craig and start to believe something bad is going on.


	3. Maybe Soon I'll Accept It All

_Dear Diary,_

_I have heard often of ghosts. The ethereal; the unsent spirits. Not the pokémon kind, but the ones that used to embody the living, breathing soul of something that once was. __Apparition,__ phantom,__ phantasm, __wraith, __revenant, __shade, __spook, __spectre, __spirit._

_They all define a ghost._

_Yet none describe what visits me each night._

_Is it karma? Justice? A divine intervention caused by the gods themselves?_

_Or is it something someone has yet to explain?_

_These questions need answers._

_As does my most important one;_

_Why was I tasked to suffer with these ghosts?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Maybe Soon I'll Accept It All|<strong>_  
><em>

**-O-O-O-**

I smile at the woman working at the reception desk as I claim back Kiki and with it, my new pokédex. I poke the buttons on it, quickly read through the instructions and boot up the machine. I have to go through the long process of synching it to me and my information, but when I'm finished, I can't get rid of the massive grin on my face when I see my name staring back at me on the screen.

It tells me to register my pokémon with it. I slot in Kiki's poké ball, fill in the information and scan through what it can tell me about my pokémon. There's not much there I don't already know. I remember what Dad told me and hit the 'history' button. It fills the page with a list of text, detailing when maractus were first discovered, were they were and who by.

Over an hour passes before I even realise it. I find out I'm now glued to the couch in the waiting room, there's a queue of people building to talk to someone and I'm sitting in full view of all of them, only just aware of how oblivious I was.

I'm about to leave my seat and the pokémon centre when I hear a familiar voice scream out, "What the hell are you talking about?"

I sit rigid in my seat, strain my ears and wrack my brain to tell me who it is. I hear curses and realise it's Sean's aunt swearing at someone I can't see or hear.

"He's damn well gone _missing_ from my room and you're telling me you can't let me look at the security footage to see where he's gone?"

I move towards the noise to see who she's with. There's a man stood with her. He seems to work with the security team at the pokémon centre. He towers over her, yet he's still stood there in front of her, palms up and looking like he's desperately trying to calm her down.

"We can't even be sure if he's gone missing. He could have gone into town."

She looks like she's about to hit him. Most of me wouldn't be surprised if she does. She glares up at him, shaking in what I think is rage.

"Then why the hell would he have left his pokémon on his bed? Why is all of his stuff untouched? How the hell did he manage to vanish in the time it took me to have a damn shower?"

"Ma'am, please calm down," the man says. "I can review the security footage from the front doors and the corridors, but I'm not allowed to call the police until he's been missing for at least twelve hours. Not less than thirty minutes."

She screams, stomps her foot and throws her arms up at him. "You just don't get it, do you? He wouldn't go anywhere without his pokémon on him! He knows better than that! If he'd left on his own, why the hell would he have left all his stuff in our room? We're meant to be checking out today, in less than an hour! He might be a kid, but he's not stupid!"

"Ma'am, my colleagues are looking over the footage they can right now. Once we find out anything, we'll let you know."

She screams after his retreating form and curses the air blue. I approach her as she turns round and I'm surprised to see a few tears trailing down her cheeks. She scowls as she sees me approach, realises just who I am and nearly leaps into my face.

"You! Has Sean told you anything? Where he's gone? Do you have _any_ idea where the hell he is?"

I manage to break her grasp on my shirt before giving her a clueless look. "What're you talking about? I saw Sean last when I left your room and you walked me back to mine."

"Really?" she whispers. I nod and she sighs, falls to the floor and looks like she's about to begin weeping. "Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, _oh shit._ My sister's _so_ going to kill me. I've only been looking after him for three days and I've already managed to lose him! What if he's gotten kidnapped? What if he's being sold as a slave to someone? What if some old rich creepy dude is trying to buy him as a child plaything? My sister's going to murder me, then salt my bones and burn my remains just to make sure I don't come back ever again!"

I remember how Craig managed to disappear overnight and instantly guilt plays a tune on my emotions. "Are you sure he's not stuck on the toilet or something?"

"Positive," she says with a shake of her head. "I was in our bathroom and I checked all the public ones in this building. He's not in any of them and he's not in our room. The receptionist said she can let me know when someone enters are room, but that's not much help when _I don't know where he is!_"

She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a little blue inhaler and spins it round in her hands. "Sean's got really bad asthma. He's allergic to sixty-three types of pokémon, seventeen plants, eight types of clothing and a breed of tropical fish that lives only in the outskirts of rainforests in Hoenn. There's no way in hell he'd go anywhere without his inhaler with him. His pokémon I can believe him leaving because he doesn't really like the evil thing, but not this. Not this…"

"Have you phoned your sister?" I ask her. "He said he didn't want to be a trainer."

Her laugh sounds more like a shout of pain. "As if I could ring her! How could I even _begin _to ask her if her only child has turned up at home? She'd wonder why I'm asking that and then realise I've lost him." She groans, sticks her head between her knees and rests her hands atop her head. "I'm so dead. I might as well start picking my plot now. Oh foongus."

I scuff my shoes awkwardly on the floor and try to think of something that might help. "I can help you look for him if you like?"

Her head snaps back up, eyes wide. "Really?" She bites her lip and frowns. "No. I can't ask you to do that."

"It's alright," I tell her. "I want to help find him."

She sniffs, pulls herself to her feet and wipes her nose with her arm. "Okay. Brilliant. _Thank you_. Um. I'm honestly not sure where I can start. Foongus. I should have thought this thing through."

I play with Kiki's poké ball in my pocket. "Do you have anything that could track him? My mum has an arcanine she's used before to help find me when I've stayed out."

"No," she says morosely. "I train fighters. The only thing I have that _might_ be able to do that is my pignite, but I haven't even thought about how I'd teach him something like that. Do you have anything that could do that?"

I shake my head. "Just Kiki – my maractus. I haven't caught any other pokémon yet."

Ali takes a deep breath and bunches her hands into shaking fists. "Okay. The staff here have my number. That means they can ring me if they find him. Meanwhile, he could be anywhere in the city. I can use my heracross to scope out everything from the air; see if she can spot him from there. You and I can work our way through the streets, if that's alright with you."

I nod quickly. "Sure."

"Right," she says uncertainly. "I should just be thankful this isn't Castelia or somewhere like that. Okay, now think. He wouldn't have gone anywhere near anything he's allergic to. That rules out the Dreamyard and everything nearby there. He's allergic to the liepard and venomoth that call that home. He'd stay away from the gym too, just in case they use something he's allergic to as well. So really there's just the west end of town."

"That's not too big a place to search, is it?" I ask her hopefully.

She puts a hand to her head and sighs. "Big enough. We better get a move on before anything happens. Because if something has, I'm not sure if my sister will kill me before or after I kill whoever does anything to him." She plucks a poké ball off her belt and throws it open. A big, skinny pokémon that's almost as tall as her forms in the light, all muscle and with one long eyebrow over one side of its face. It wears clothes similar to those I've seen the instructor at one of Jerry's old karate classes wear and its skin is a really dark blue.

"Cap," she says to the thing. "We need to try and find Sean, alright? Anyone comes in my way while we try and find him, feel free to throw them clear over the nearest building, alright?"

It rumbles something that makes her nod. She glances at me and points back to her pokémon. "This is Cap. He's my sawk. Cap, she's helping us find Sean, alright? So no throwing her over tall buildings."

I agree with that idea.

"Okay, introductions done, let's go."

**-O-O-O-**

I find out quickly that I'm really not a fan of some parts of Striaton. If not for Ali's pokémon, a lot of the people there would have happily followed us and tried to have taken our pokémon or something. I'm happy that we've found out Sean isn't anywhere in those parts, but I'd still rather not have ever had to go near them.

Ali keeps checking her phone, getting more and more annoyed every time she sees it's still empty.

"This is getting us nowhere," she decides. Her sawk growls something to her. She scowls back at it and searches the skies for her heracross. It reports in every twenty minutes; sooner if it sees something like Sean.

"Foongus," she growls. I quickly realise that it's just her cursing instead of talking about pokémon. "Shitting, raping foongus!" she shouts to the heavens. A few people give her strange looks; her and her pokémon match them with venomous glares. She sighs, drops her phone and falls against the floor. "What the hell am I going to do?"

"Keep looking?" I suggest. "We've only been looking for an hour."

"But it's an hour more that I haven't found him in!" She plays with her phone again, almost like she's hoping for some sort of good news. "No one's seen him. No one's even paid any attention to anything that's going on around them."

"Train stations?" I suggest to her. "Maybe he went to one of them? Or to get a boat. Do they have boats in Striaton?"

"No, but they do have train stations," she says as she leaps to her feet. "You're a genius, you know that!" she yells, already running down a street. "Come on!"

Her pokémon races after her faster than I can imagine. _She_ runs faster than I can imagine. A few times I'm in danger of losing her too before she stops, checks to make sure I'm still behind her and takes off running again towards a specific direction.

The first two train stations we get to give us no results. Ali's heracross comes back in the meantime, gives its report and gets recalled by its trainer. She keeps Cap out, mainly so it can shove people out of the way as she races towards the next place.

My legs and lungs hurt so much more than I remember them ever doing as we reach the final station. Ali pretty much collapses at the help desk, fumbles for her phone and shows the man working there a picture of Sean.

"Has he come by here at all?" she asks, breathless. "I'm his aunt. He's run off on me. _Please_ tell me you know something."

The man frowns as he takes the phone from her. He mutters something neither of us hear before he leans back on his chair and shouts for someone he works with. A tall, completely bald man walks into view, frowns at whatever the man says, takes the phone from him and nods.

He hands the phone back to Ali. "He came by just over two hours ago. I only remember because he was something like one poké short for the train fair. I let him go ahead anyway; kid seemed desperate to get to wherever he was going."

Ali practically leaps over the counter to grab at the man. "Where was he going? Tell me!"

He shrugs and tells the other man to pull up the records of it all. "Driftveil by the looks of it. That mean anything to you?"

She breathes a sigh of relief and droops against the counter. "My sister lives in Driftveil. Thank you!" she declares, leans over the counter, grabs the man and kisses his bald head. "You have no idea how much you've saved my skin."

The man laughs. "No problem. Try to keep an eye on this one though, eh?"

She manages a small smile. "I think I'm done babysitting family now." She thanks him again, smiles at me and dials a number on her phone. "Hey, Toni?" she says, smiling more at something on the other end of the line. "… Alright, so he's just rung you from the train station. Okay, brilliant. … Yeah, no, he let me know about it all. I told him to ring you on the way, but it looks like he forgot. He must have been in a rush to meet you though; he left all his stuff in our room at the pokémon centre. … Yeah, brilliant, send Brutus to the pokémon centre in Striaton in about an hour; I'll give him the stuff to take with him then. Alright, love you, take care."

She sighs as she hangs up the phone and collapses to the floor. "_Never_ babysit your nephews," she warns me. "It's far too much hassle. I think I've just lost about ten years of my life. I owe you," she declares, smiling up at me. "How about I buy you dinner or something later today? I've got a gym battle I'm meant to go to, then I'm free after that."

I play sheepishly with the broken sleeves of my hoodie. "You don't have to."

"It's alright," she says with a grin. "You helped me try and find Sean. You're the one that thought of going to the train stations. If it wasn't for you, I'd either be on the floor and a weeping mess or I'd probably be beating someone up for information."

I manage to laugh at that. "Okay then. What gym leader are you fighting?"

She gets pulled back to her feet by her pokémon. It dusts her down and nods just before she thanks it and recalls it. "All of them. The ones here are weird; three type specialists in one gym, but you only face those you're weak to. If you're like me though, and didn't start with anything from the grass-water-fire triangle, you face them all in turn, one on one. And after what Sean's put me through, I could really do with beating something up."

I move away instinctively. She laughs and pats my back. "Not you though. You're too smart to be mean to. So, now all the crazy is done with at least I can relax a bit. So where you heading to after here?"

I point towards the west. "Nacrene. How about you?"

"Same, ideally." She hooks a hand beneath one of her backpack straps as she leads us back to the pokémon centre. "The gym there is something I should be good against, in theory. Sean was meant to come with me; watch me fight a few gyms and then decide from there what he wanted to do. I know my sister's pushy, but I never really expected her to have forced him into being a trainer."

"So what's happening to his pokémon then?" I ask her. "He said he doesn't like it because it always flings poop at everyone."

She makes a face. "Yeah, it does that. I think I'll end up sending it back to my sister with his stuff. I don't tend to train anything unless it's a fighter. Unless of course, you want it?"

I shake my head quickly. "No thanks." Something that throws flaming poop at everyone? Just dealing with an angry, world – or just me – hating maractus is enough.

"Ah well." She shrugs and points off to the distance. "I caught it over that way; in Pinwheel forest just after my sister told me he was going to be a trainer. I thought why not have something a family member has trained for you? My sister was meant to train it a little, but I think she just thought Sean would be able to do it himself."

"My dad got Kiki when I was nine," I tell her. "He trained it most of the time and let me play with it, so it knows both of us, I guess. It listens to me more when we battle, thought."

Ali frowns as she looks at me. "You know pokémon are boys and girls too, right? Your pokémon's not just an '_it'_. They get upset if you don't treat them right."

I hold Kiki's ball in my hand and feel its weight. "Pokémon aren't boys or girls," I mutter rebelliously. "Only humans are. Pokémon can't speak like we do."

"Psychics can," she argues. "So do a few ghosts. And there's a lot more pokémon that even look close to human. Be thankful Cap wears those clothes. Otherwise he looks just like a naked man. Except blue. So kinda like that guy on that weird superhero film."

My mind draws a blank at whatever she's talking about. "What film's that?"

She stutters suddenly, blushes and looks like she's been caught red-handed by her mother. "That's right, you won't have seen it, will you? You've gotta be eighteen or over to go and watch it… Don't you worry about it!" she declares, swinging her arms happily. "So, tell ya what; I've gotta go get ready for my gym battle later on, why don't I meet you later and we can hang out then?"

"Okay." I nod, silently trying to plan what I can do for the rest of the day. Maybe I can go to the library and read a few of the books they have there. I've been to the library here in Striaton a few times – it has pretty awesome books on history.

Though I've also got to train Kiki too. And talk to her since she got beat up by the creepy-guy's snot-bug.

"Go to the Dreamyard," Ali tells me as she points towards the other end of town. "There's pokémon that roam around in there. Some are pretty strong – there's even a few non-native Unovan pokémon that live there."

Not all that bothered, if I'm honest. Unless maybe if I could catch a gyarados… a tame one that doesn't want to eat me, of course.

Going to the library sounds better. I still need to study if I want to get into my school! And then once I can get in, I can let Craig know about-

But I can't let Craig know _anything_. I don't know where he is.

"Poo," I whisper. Ali raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug and pretend like nothing's the matter. "So what lives in the Dreamyard then?"

She grins. "You'll just have to find out, won't you? Or use your pokédex to do so." She laughs and pats me on the head. "You're as bad as Sean, you know that? Though try not to run back onto the first train without telling me, okay? I don't think anyone's built to handle that many heart attacks."

"I'm not going home anytime soon," I say, crestfallen with the truth of it all. I don't even know where home is going to be now. All because of that stupid Sinnoh pokémon.

"Here," Ali says, handing me her phone. "Put your number in there; I'll ring you when I'm done and we can meet up."

I stare at it and feel my cheeks heat up in shame. How do I go about saying I don't own a phone? I feel like such a social reject all because of it.

"I uh…"

"Don't have a phone, huh?" she guesses, taking hers back. "Hey, no worries. I break mine regularly. Or more, Cap breaks them, but still, same thing, right?"

"Mine's broke," I tell her. "So I'm waiting for a new one, but Mum and Dad said they didn't have the money right away, so I've got to wait until I get to the pokémon centre in Nacrene City to get the new one they're sending me."

She laughs. "The amount of times that happened to me is unbelievable. Alright then. Say meet back at the pokémon centre at about six?" She stares at me, blank faced for a moment. "You _do_ have a watch, right?"

"Yes!" I squeak, indignant. "I'll meet you at six then."

"Okay." She nods, moves two steps away and then returns back to me. "Actually, I feel bad about leaving you to find the place on your own. I'll walk you there, alright?"

I flash her Kiki's poké ball. "I can get there on my own. Kiki can help me."

"Maybe," she concedes, shrugging. "But I'll feel bad if I let a ten year old girl wander through the cities on her own. My cousin looked out for me when I started on my journey, so I guess I'm just carrying on being chivalrous… except, I'm not a guy, so is it really chivalry when it's a girl doing it?"

I shrug. "I don't know what that word means."

"Of course you don't," she grunts with a roll of her eyes. "Come on, I'll drop you off at the Dreamyard. And maybe stop for supplies along the way. Like a GPS tracker I can staple to Sean's forehead when I see him again."

I look up at her with wide, somewhat frightened eyes. "Would you really do that?"

She laughs. "What? No!" She waves a hand at me, still laughing. "Doing something like that would probably make his head too heavy or something. Or make every electrical pokémon within a five mile radius hunt him down."

I get the mental image almost instantly.

Except it's Jerry being chased by a swarm of scuttling joltik.

I laugh and then ask her, "That doesn't really happen, does it?"

She just smiles back down at me. "You're rather gullible, aren't you?"

I feel my cheeks burn as I realise that it, in fact, _doesn't_ happen. Still, the thought of my brother being chased by random groups of electrical pokémon is more than enough to devour the gullibility-induced shame.

**-O-O-O-**

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Looking is the wrong word. Kiki's trying to burn my face off with its eyes.

I'm happy its not a fiery pokémon. And can't learn anything that can make fire.

I hope.

"_You_ lost against that snot-bug!"

It warbles something, shaking its long, spiked arms around itself. I don't understand it and just decide to glare at it.

Unfortunately, given that it's almost as tall as me, it doesn't seem to do much.

_Stupid cactus._

"Maybe he was just lucky?" I poke a few buttons on my pokédex instead of looking at my pokémon. "I mean, we always won the battles when we fought at school, didn't we? Only Jerry ever managed to beat us, but that's because he's _Jerry._ And he cheats. With that creepy dodrio of his."

Kiki tutters something, folding her arms.

I take it that it agrees with me.

"We should catch something!" I declare, balling my hands into fists. We're at the Dreamyard now – it's an old, abandoned warehouse that stands alone in the middle of some fields near Striaton. Ali's probably waiting for her gym battle whilst I watch the sunrays creep out of gaps between the trees.

It's pretty here. It reminds me of the places my parents started taking me to once Jerry left on his journey. We went to this big open field near Driftveil once; there were a load of sawsbuck and deerling walking around, happily eating the plants.

Then some man's stoutland got loose and chased them all across the park.

I smile to myself as I remember it all. Kiki, meanwhile, stands there, still trying to turn my eyeballs into acid.

"We need to catch something," I tell it, biting my lip apprehensively. How do I actually capture a pokémon though? My parents gave me Kiki as a gift, already inside the poké ball. I've pretended to catch pokémon with Dad before, but that was just throwing fake-poké balls at random scarecrows.

What if I don't do it right? What if I can't aim properly?

What if I accidentally smack something big and angry and mean and scary and-

Kiki grunts something. I turn to it and watch it glower instead at the pokémon jumping about nearby. It gives them all a dark look, almost like it hates them too.

"I don't want one of them," I tell it. Strangely, Kiki looks… relieved?

It's weird that I know that.

I start to panic; I can understand something my pokémon does! Jerry told me that once you do, you can start turning into a pokémon yourself!

I check my head for ears that aren't my own. Kiki looks at me with confusion. That scares me even more and I'm convinced I'm turning into a pokémon. I don't want to be one! I want to be human! I don't want to be small and furry and have no arms and have to headbutt doors to open them!

Though I wouldn't mind getting to randomly throw lightning at people.

"I'm just being gullible again, aren't I?" I ask my pokémon. It ignores me and looks at the nearby pokémon. There's a big raticate nearby, chewing on scraps someone's left behind. It doesn't notice the big, stalky liepard creeping up on it. I watch with wide eyes as the liepard leaps, lands on the raticate and tears out its throat before the rat even realises what's going on.

"That was so _cool!_" I scream at the liepard. Its ears press down on its skull and it hisses at me. Kiki growls back at it. The liepard hisses again, picks up the dead raticate by the back of its neck and disappears into the tall grass.

"That was _awesome!"_ I tell Kiki, bouncing up and down on my toes. "I want one! How cool would that be? I can let it sneak after things and then it can rip their throats out like that one did to that raticate! And then I can be the cool trainer with the awesome stalky-cat and everyone else is just the person with the pokémon that's dead."

Kiki just gives me a flat look.

"What?" I mutter at it. "It _would_ be cool. You don't do anything like that. You're boring."

Kiki glares at me again. Then it lifts its arms and shoots a few needles into the tree. A random pidove falls out, needles sticking out from its neck.

Mid-air, another liepard leaps up and catches the dead bird in its mouth. It disappears into the grass not a second later, no trace of it anywhere.

"See?" I shriek, pointing at where the pokémon was. "How cool was that? You killed it and then it leapt out and took the bird and ran off! They're _awesome!"_

Kiki still doesn't look impressed.

_Stupid cactus._

"We're catching a kitty," I tell it. It grunts something at me and I poke it in the chest, avoiding as many needles as I can. "We're catching one. I'm the trainer, I say we get one. Unless you want to keep getting beaten up by snot-drills?"

It waves its arms madly at me.

"See, you don't. Now let's go catch one of them."

Finding one of them proves harder than I thought. There's loads of patrat scuttling about, even a few rattata and at one point a munna floats nearby me. I don't want any of them though! I want a liepard!

Or maybe a purrloin. They'll be easier to train and then I can make it learn other things too. Like how to open doors. And maybe to play the piano, like those liepard on the internet can.

I wander for nearly half an hour when finally I come across one of the kitties. It's sat there in the middle of a little cluster of grass, licking water from a muddy puddle. It looks up at us, bats its eyes and then licks itself in that unnatural, creepy-stretchy-cat way.

I'm practically leaping out of my skin, even so. "It's one of them!" I declare happily, pointing madly at it. "We've got to catch it! Kiki, distract it with cotton!"

I'm amazed that Kiki listens. Little bits of cotton fluff start swirling around it, disturbing the grass and bending it away. One or two drop into the mud and become gross and brown, dripping mud everywhere around Kiki.

The purrloin looks up and its pupils go crazy-big when it sees all the fluff. It yowls and launches after them, landing on them and tearing into them with tiny teeth and claws. It's so cute that I forget what I'm doing and instead just watch the cat play with the little balls of fluff.

Kiki grunts.

"Oh, right," I say sheepishly and fumble around in a pocket for my spare poké balls. I finally find one and see the kitten still chasing after little bits of fluff. With all my might I throw the poké ball…

… and hit someone in the face.

I squeak and turn bright red as it bounces off his nose and lands in a little puddle of mud. The purrloin yelps and runs away, back into the grass.

I see the man look towards me, so I shriek and hide behind Kiki. He can't see me behind a pokémon. Not if I remain still and quiet and tiny.

_I am invisible._

_I am invisible._

_I am-_

A hand appears in my field of vision.

"Is this yours?"

-_I am the most visible thing there ever was._

Ears and cheeks bright red, I manage to look up at him. Unlike the scary-snot-bee man, he looks nice. Blonde hair and blue eyes and about Ali's age.

And he also has a massive circle-shaped mark where my poké ball smacked him.

"Um," I mumble, staring at the poké ball in his hand. "Maybe?"

He laughs and throws it gently into the air. I catch it and shy away. He just smiles and rubs his face. "Try to aim at the pokémon next time, alright?"

I nod quickly. "I did try. But it was little and tiny and I can't throw that far down!"

He just smiles again. "Have you never thrown one before? Or played baseball?"

I feel a bit more confident and come out from Kiki's shadow. Kiki just remains there, needles ready to stab him at any opportunity. I get the image of him falling down, like the pidove before and then a liepard leaping from the grass and running away with him too.

_Liepards are so cool._

"I've played baseball a few times… with my brother. And my friends," I tell him.

"Did you ever play pitcher?"

"Sometimes. I hit my brother in the face with the ball in that too."

He just laughs. "At least I'm not the only one. Work on your aim kid, you've definitely got the power behind it. And while you do that, I'm going to find some ice for my nose."

"Sorry!" I shout after him as he's already leaving. Once he's gone, I turn around to Kiki and manage a smile. "At least he was nice about it. Jerry was never that smiley whenever I hit him in the face with a baseball."

Kiki just shrugs and says nothing.

I should really put that translator collar on it.

But that means getting close enough to get needled. And I don't want to have to pick needles out of my skin again.

"Maybe we should just train," I decide. I should be less likely to injure people that way. And maybe a few purrloin might come along and be distracted enough for me to capture in the meantime. I find a nearby tree, mark a target on it and make Kiki aim for it whilst I sit down nearby and read one of my books.

At least, until it starts to rain and I'm forced to stop before my book becomes a wet pile of mush.

**-O-O-O-**

When I make my way back to the pokémon centre, I find Ali already standing outside, hiding underneath the overhang of the roof and yet still as soaked as I am.

My shoes _slosh_ with every step I make. It's kinda cool, apart from the fact that it's really annoying my feet at the same time.

She grins at me and squeezes a lot of water out of her hair before we go back into the pokémon centre. "So, did you manage to catch anything?"

"No," I say and tell her everything that happened.

She laughs enough that she somehow manages to choke on it. "That's amazing," she says afterwards, tears still staining her eyes. "My sister actually did that before; it's how she met Sean's dad."

"I wanted one of the liepards though," I mope. "They were so cool!" I sigh to myself and swing my arms by my side, splashing the already wet pokémon centre floor. "How'd your gym battle go?"

She punches an empty fist. "I totally owned their asses! I've only got a few more steps until I can challenge the league."

"How many badges do you have?" I ask her, trying to remember how many Jerry has. There's no way she can have more than him!

"Just this and two others from Unova," she says. "I started in Unova, but then I went to Kanto with my cousins and challenged the league there first. I spent three years there – one of which I was training in the fighting dojo in Saffron, then afterwards I spent two years in Johto."

"That's so long!" I say, trying to imagine spending that much time anywhere. It's half my life! "Why're you back in Unova then?"

"Sean," she says whilst redoing her hair. "I was going to go onto Sinnoh, but then my sister rang me and told me about how Sean was setting out on his journey soon. So I offered to help him. Family's got to stick together, right? And besides, it's kinda boring when you're travelling on your own."

"I know," I say. One night of it was more than enough.

The woman behind the desk asks us what we need. Ali hands over two of her pokémon to be healed and waits for me to say something about mine. I tell her Kiki's fine and she nods.

"Come on, we might as well crash in my room for a while." She waves me after her, already heading for the stairs. "I know I checked out this morning, but my pokémon are going to need a night's rest to heal. You got a room?"

I think about it and shake my head. "I checked out this morning too. Mine was only free for last night."

"I've got a spare bed in mine," she offers quickly. "Considering we're both going to Nacrene, it'll probably be easier if we go there together, right? Besides, it's safer traveling in a group."

I've heard about it, but no one's ever given me specific details. Just that bad things happen. I ask Ali and she agrees.

"There's that. There's also your own stupidity that can screw you over. I got locked in the Pewter Museum one night," she says as she unlocks her room's door. "It was scary and took forever for me to find a guard in there. And more than that; the entire thing about Sinnoh history _sucked_."

"Why?" I have to ask. As if history can suck! It's so interesting!

She shrugs and throws her stuff onto one of the beds. I realise that has to be hers and climb onto the other bed, wet clothes and all.

"It was just boring. All they had were fossils and some weird box with a robotic human that spouted nonsense about ramparados and how Mount Coronet was formed. There was also something about ancient pokémon there and did you know people used to eat stantler cheese?"

I blink, wondering about how that could possibly taste. "That sounds gross," I tell her.

"I thought so too." She finds a towel in the bathroom and starts trying to dry her hair with it. "But, I suppose that was interesting enough. When I realised I couldn't find any security guards I did try pretending I was a hero in a videogame, trying to steal something from the museum's archive."

I laugh. "You're such a geek."

"Hey! It got me found by security, at least!" she says and throws her towel at me. "I was so close to taking it too!"

"What was it?" I ask her, throwing the towel back at her.

She catches it and continues trying to dry her hair. "I don't know. But it was big. And shiny. And I probably wouldn't have been able to carry it out of there myself." She sighs and pulls the towel from her head; her hair sticking out all over the place. I laugh at her and she attacks me with the towel, making my hair just as ridiculous.

She glances out of the window and watches the rain hammer down against the glass. "Well, considering as how we won't be getting anywhere in that rain, how about instead of dinner, we just get a load of junk food and watch cartoons all night?"

Two things I'd never have a chance to do at home, not unless something special was going on.

"Alright!" I cheer. "As long as there's cake."

"Why wouldn't there be?" she asks, pulling a silly face at me.

When we've finally collected enough food, we push the beds together and start watching mind-numbing cartoons for half the night. I feel my teeth tingle from all the sugar but don't care, because for the first time since starting this stupid journey, I'm actually enjoying myself.


	4. Take A Step And Choose Your Path

_Dear Diary,_

_I saw outside today._

_It was… nice._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Take A Step and Choose Your Path|<strong>

**-O-O-O-  
><strong>

I'm convinced Ali is deaf.

It's the only explanation for her attempts at singing.

She's spent a lot of the morning singing into her hairbrush. It was funny at first. Then it got rather annoying when I tried going back to sleep again.

Now she's in the shower and murdering a few of Mum's favourite songs though, I think it's kind of funny again.

Especially because the people in the room next door have started screaming for her to shut up.

"They're just jealous," she declares as she slings the bathroom door open. Steam pours out of it, almost like fog on a stage. I half expect her to leap on the opportunity and start singing into her hairbrush again. Instead she wraps a towel around her head and shuffles into the room to grab her things. "They're complaining because they can't sing and they have legs that look like mutilated twigs."

Cue the random mental imagery.

"Careful when you go in there," she says as I approach the bathroom. "I may have gotten the floor wet."

I poke my head in. Wet is an understatement. I'm fairly certain a basculin could happily swim around in the water that's drowning the floor. I fish out Kiki's poké ball from my hoodie and let it out in the middle of the soaked bathroom. It grunts something at the change of surroundings and I watch as the water seems to disappear around her.

"That's… pretty cool," Ali says from behind me.

I smile and recall my pokémon once more. "Maractus can suck up lots of water and store it for a long time. Dad showed me when he first got me Kiki. It doesn't seem to drink any other way, so I let it suck up big puddles of water like that whenever I can."

"Are you sure it's alright with slightly warm water though?" she asks me, scrubbing madly at her hair with a towel. "I've seen grassy pokémon that tend to run away from any sort of warm water."

I shrug. "Dad says that Kiki's meant to live in the desert, so it'd be used to warm water anyway." I throw Kiki's poké ball onto my bed and collect my towel. "I'm going to have a shower now."

"Alright." She looks out from underneath the towel and nods towards the bathroom. "I might have used a lot of the shampoo though."

I close the door, make my way to the shower and find out that not only has she used almost all of the shampoo, but she's left her toenail clippings at the bottom of the shower too.

I decide that I'm never, _ever_ taking a shower after her again.

**-O-O-O-**

The way to Nacrene from Striaton involves a long, dusty dirt path that winds through big plains surrounded by lakes. As we walk down them, we see the blitzle chasing after each other and all the other pokémon occasionally poking their faces out of the grass.

It's a struggle to see Nacrene. I tell Ali and she lets me know it's at least a few days walk away. I groan and think of my feet – they already still hum with pain after just walking two days! Anymore and they're going to drop off!

I need a big pokémon. Something I can sit on and just ride to each town.

Ali spends a little bit of the travel on the phone. She goes bright red and starts furiously whispering to whoever's on the other end of the line. I ask her who it is and she lets me know that it's Sean. I remember something teleporting into my room when I was asleep, me leaping about in fear but then Ali saying she knew it and then I was asleep again. That must have been the thing Ali's sister sent to pick up Sean's stuff.

Ali hands me the phone after letting him know I want to speak to him. "Hello?" I say into it.

"Hey!" he squeaks back. He sounds almost exactly like he does in person – which is something, considering how weird Dad sounds. "How are you? Sorry about vanishing… I just really wanted to get home. And away from my pokémon."

"I can't blame you," I mutter into the phone. I would gladly go home right now, if I could. I feel jealous of him for being able to, but more than that, angry at how stupid he was with disappearing like that. I tell him as much and see Ali smile at me. "You could have at least said you were going home!"

"I know, but I had to get my train!" he yelps down the phone. "If I didn't get it in time, I'd have had to wait until I got to Nacrene to get a different one. I wanted to go home and I did."

"Still," I mumble and play with the little timburr charm that hangs from Ali's phone. "Maybe next time I see you don't run off overnight?" I've had too many friends disappear that way already.

"Next time?" he asks.

"Well yeah," I say quickly. "I mean I might end up where you live and we can meet up again. I'm travelling with your aunt anyway, so if you see her, you'll see me too."

He's all quiet for a moment and then finally seems to remember how to speak again. "Cool. Auntie Ali says you don't have a phone yet, so get my number off her when you get one, okay?"

"Alright," I say, nodding along even though I know he can't see me.

"Brilliant. Can you put me back on the phone to my aunt? I need to ask her something."

I hand the phone back to Ali and listen in as she tells him off a little more about ditching her. She makes sure that he's okay and that her sister isn't going to kill her before finally hanging up and sliding her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

"I wish Sean would think things out a bit more," she says, watching a couple of pidove fight over someone's discarded takeaway. "Then again, impulsiveness is kind of a trend that runs in my family. So I guess I can't fault him for that." She shrugs to herself as she realises I don't really have anything to say to that. Instead of talking she opts for whistling something to herself.

"We should probably use this time to get some more money," she says to me only a few minutes later. She opens up her wallet and shakes it up and down. "I'm flat broke."

I remember the man and his snotty beedrill. "So we get money from pokémon battles, right? I've never done battles for money," I admit, scuffing at the ground with my shoe. Or at least, those that I knew were for money. At least people keep agreeing with me that I was right to punch him for trying to take mine after his weird bug hurt Kiki.

Ali grins and tucks her wallet away again. "That's where the beauty of travelling with someone comes in handy. If say, I'm battling, I can give most of my money to you. That way, if I lose, I don't lose that much money. And if I win… well, I get more money!"

It sounds like cheating, somehow. I tell her as much and she shrugs. "In a way, it is. But they can't prove anything – if you're holding my money, as far as they're concerned, it's your money, not mine. Unless they see me handing my money over to you, they're clueless."

She tells me to let her go first to demonstrate it all. She ends up battling a few people with her pokémon that are _amazingly_ strong! She has a pignite that manages to pick up a fully grown heatmor and throw it away like it weighs nothing!

I _so_ want a fighting pokémon after watching hers. Then I can have it carry me everywhere and it can carry all my stuff too! I could sit in my bed and be lazy as I have this huge pokémon carry me wherever I want to go. It would be awesome.

There's one major thing I notice about Ali though; I've always been told about people that are sore losers and can't accept defeat very well.

Ali's a sore _winner_.

"Hah! Yeah!" she cheers as her pignite sits atop a worn out watchog. "You suck! Suck my balls, _sucker_!" she screams, jives on the spot and thrusts at the guy she's just beaten. "And you know who else sucks? You do!" She keeps laughing until she turns around and sees me. Eyes wide, she turns bright red and coughs self-consciously.

"Urm, don't repeat anything I say when I'm battling, alright? You're too young to say such things." She goes as far as to wag a finger at me. Then she spins around and starts cursing at the loser again.

"I am _awesome!_" she declares as she flicks through a few notes – all different shades of blues. "Here, hold onto these," she says and hands me most of the pile. "I've still got a bit more I need to save up until I can fully restock on stuff. Your pokémon feeling better yet?"

I shrug and hold Kiki's poké ball. While Ali's been winning most of her battles, I've been trying to keep up with her and battle other people. I've beaten everyone but one girl – but she cheated and used a tranquill to win! I wasn't going to hand her any money until Ali told me I had to.

I still think she cheated.

"Kiki needs rest," I tell her. I let out my maractus and watch it try to walk around and scour the surroundings, even with a massive bruise on its back and broken spikes. "Plant your roots," I tell it. "You get better and we can work on your aim at the same time."

I'm vaguely aware that Ali's watching me as I walk over to a tree, dig out a knife from my bag and scratch marks into the bark. Dad always makes his pokémon train with targets, but I like Mum's approach better and draw random shapes on the tree. Then I make my pokémon aim for them in a specific order. Dad thinks I'm weird for doing so.

Apparently Ali does too.

"That's the cross," I say with a shake of my head and point at it. "_That's_ the square. Hit that first."

Kiki grunts and gives me a sharp look. I match it with my own and watch it make aim again. Its needles seem to glow then suddenly there's a cracking sound next to me. I glance at the tree and see that at least it's nearly hit the cross this time.

Ali comes up nearby me and leans in to see Kiki's handiwork, but keeps her head out of danger's way. "That's… _wow_."

"What is?" I ask, looking up at her.

Her mouth is slightly open and she turns away and tries to see how far away we are from my pokémon. "Fifteen metres? And she's hitting that close? That's… that's just… wow."

"It's sloppy," I tell her and shoot a glare at my pokémon. "Usually it's better. Today it's not hitting the right thing nearly seven out of ten times!"

Ali just raises an eyebrow at me. It's clear she doubts me, but I don't say anything on it. Kiki would take the distraction and be lazy otherwise.

Ali seems to understand I'm not speaking about it anymore and scratches her pignite behind the ears. It's nearly up to her shoulders on its hind legs and has a silly, goofy smile.

And it smells like bacon. My stomach rumbles and I try my best not to start gnawing on Ali's pignite then and there. It might not like it when people start trying to eat it, after all. I don't really want my hair set on fire.

"So are you going to catch another pokémon then?" Ali asks me.

I shrug. "Maybe. I need another pokémon. I don't know what yet though."

"Anything in mind?"

"Liepard!" I answer almost instantly and tell her again about the ones I saw in the Dreamyard. I can't help but bounce up and down as I do so. They were awesome, after all.

"So not another plant then?" she asks with a nod towards Kiki.

I scratch the back of my head as I try to think about it. "I don't think so. I don't want another plant, because otherwise when the other trainers cheat it would make them able to beat my pokémon easier."

She laughs one of those little half-sigh laughs. "It's not cheating you know? Some pokémon are stronger than others, like water over fire and fighters beating dark."

"It's _cheating_," I say. "Because if they know what I'm using and they do something that makes it easier for them to win, it still can be called cheating." I nod my head at her like I'm the master of it all. "I know about it. I had an exam on it in school. Mr Bradford told us all about it."

She just smiles and rolls her eyes. "But it can show you're stronger than people if you beat them even if they're… cheating."

What she says makes sense, as much as I don't want to admit it. "Is that why you use only fighters?"

"In a way." She flinches away as one of Kiki's needle strikes comes too close to use. I glare at my pokémon and tell it off as Ali leads us a little distance away. She sits down on the floor and her pignite lays down and puts its head in her lap. "I've told you before; I'm a fighter. You see, if your grandparents train a certain pokémon, then your parents do too, they change a little to be more like them."

I scrunch my nose up at her. "Is this like science? Because I had to learn that in school and got bored about hearing about how moths change colour because of pollution."

She pulls a face. "I remember that. That _was_ boring! This is a little different. See, because my family's been around fighters so long, they've adapted to them. So I'm stronger than most people because of it."

I feel my eyes bulge out of my head. "So you're super strong? Can you be a superhero?"

"What? No." She laughs and pulls at her collar. "I don't think I'd be happy walking around in a cape and tights. Nothing as strong as lifting a car by myself, but it means I'm stronger than people the same size as me."

People can change when they're around certain pokémon.

That sounds _awesome!_

"What about me then?" I ask her. "My parents have trained all sorts of different pokémon! Does that mean I can breathe fire or stop time or something?"

I try really hard to breathe fire. Instead I burp and choke on it at the same time.

Ali laughs at me. Her pignite does too. A little further in the distance, I can hear Kiki laughing too.

_Stupid cactus._

"Maybe," Ali says. "Does either of your parents train one specific sort of pokémon? Or did your grandparents?"

"No," I admit. "But Mum has lots of pokémon and so does Dad!"

She shrugs and pulls a blade of grass from the floor. "Sorry. It doesn't work like that," she says as she twirls the grass between her fingers.

"That sucks," I decide.

She picks a few flowers from the ground and starts braiding them into her pokémon's fur. "Maybe. Or you never know; you could just have some hidden ability that no one's discovered yet."

I like that idea a lot more. I imagine myself growing wings or being able to breathe fire. But normally when people get those sorts of powers, they end up having to fight bad guys and getting arch-enemies.

That would mean I'd never get to my school.

On the other hand, I'd be able to breathe fire.

"It'd be cool," I tell Ali, "but I don't think that would help much. I'd get brain powers or something and then there'd be this evil person that would come along and make it so that I have to keep fighting them, all the time!"

"It's the way it happens," Ali says, like she knows what she's talking about. "Or maybe you're just destined to be a protector of some freaky island in the middle of nowhere. But to do that, you'd need to be a doctor. Or a guy who wins the lottery with cursed numbers. I doubt you're likely to be either."

I shake my head as I tell her, "I don't want to be a doctor. People's insides are too squishy. I'd do something wrong and then they'd die on the table. I can't play Operation; I always make the buzzers go off."

"I can't play board games, full stop. I tend to get a little annoyed at them and end up kicking them across the room." She holds up a loop of little daisies, grabs my arm and slips it over my wrist. "There you go," she says and pats my hand. "If anyone asks, you made that, okay? I've got a significantly not-girly stereotype to keep up."

I don't ask why, instead I just busy myself staring at the strange bracelet on my wrist. I convince her to teach me how to make them – Dad and Jerry never told me how to make one because they said it was too _girly_ and Mum's useless at trying to make anything. She tried making a cake once and it looked like misery personified. When I learn how to make the flower chains I get a little carried away and cover Kiki in them.

The end result is that I end up getting glared at by a hippie-cactus.

"She looks sorta like a Christmas tree," Ali observes, her chin resting on her fist and her head tilting. "Except, you know, if the tree was a cactus and the baubles were flowers."

"My Christmas tree glares at me a lot less." In fact, I think everything glares at me less than Kiki does. Including that grumpy old man who lives down the road that complains about everything.

I want him to randomly disappear overnight. Grumpy old man that he is.

It's not _my_ fault Kiki decided to attack his gnomes!

I mean, they are pretty ugly.

If anything, she was helping him! At least now his front garden is pretty... if not slightly full of sharp gnome pieces that the mailman doesn't seem to find all that friendly.

"Come on," Ali says with a wave towards the distance. "We should probably start walking again. Gonna get dark soon and we should really get a bit more distance towards Nacrene."

"Okay," I agree happily and recall my glaring not-Christmas tree pokémon. "Can we battle more trainers on the way though? I like getting money when I beat them."

"We'll see what we can do," she says, smacking her hands together. "If the horror stories about Lenora are true, then I'm going to have to make sure I'm prepared enough for her." Her pignite snorts from up ahead somewhere and dives into the grass. There's the sounds of a fight and then it appears again, dead audino in its mouth.

"Urgh," Ali grunts and shakes both hands at the thing. "Careful with that. You know how many diseases they have? There's a reason why we're encouraged to kill those things, you know?"

"Really?" I ask her. I haven't heard anything like that before. Only my parents telling me to keep away from them. "What is it?"

"Some sort of weird eye disease," she says. She looks like she wants to wrestle the thing out of her pokémon's mouth, but doesn't want to touch it at the same time. "Mixy-something. All I know is that it used to be pretty rare and that only a few buneary in Sinnoh could catch it. Then someone brought one of those over here, spread it to the audino and somehow, they can spread it to almost any pokémon there is. That's why Unova's so harsh with all the pokémon restriction laws."

"Okay," I say, trying to understand it all. Eye disease still grosses me out a little. It makes me think of all the horrible pictures Jerry showed me on the computer, with all these bright green and burst eyeballs. "Your pokémon won't get it, will he?"

"Nah," she says dismissively. "Jude's a fiery pokémon – they're pretty resistant to most diseases. Something to do with them not being able to exist within the temperatures of a fiery pokémon's body, or something." She shrugs and pulls at the ends of her hair, inspecting each in turn. "I'm not totally certain. It's science. Science confuses me. I mean, it's much easier to understand something like punching someone and I've got a load of split ends."

"Huh?" I grunt at her. How did she get from science and diseases to split ends?

"Sorry," she says with a little laugh. "I tend to get off track sometimes. You'll get used to it."

"I need to get used to your singing first. My ears still hurt."

She glares at me, then grins and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Exploit this young-and-innocent age as much as you can. Once you get older, you're not going to be able to get away with saying things like that. Try that when you get older and your ears will grow to the size of your head."

"No they won't!" I shriek, holding my ears just in case they happen to be doing that already.

"Oh, I don't know." She leans towards me and pinches one of my ears. I yelp in protest and she just hums that I-don't-like-this sound. "Oh yeah, they're definitely starting to grow already. Being too cheeky makes them double in size."

"I don't want ears as big as my head!" I wail and try to fold them back into normal size. Only when Ali starts laughing do I realise that she's making it all up. I put all my force into glaring at her. "I don't like you," I mutter.

She grins and messes my hair up. "That's alright. I know you're lying because your nose is growing."

Instantly my hands are feeling my nose for any sudden growth. Terrified that I'm going to look like a nosepass, I shriek, "Don't say that!"

She laughs at me again and makes me realise that she's actually just as bad as Jerry, if not worse.

**-O-O-O-**

Nacrene City amazes me with how big it is.

We get only three streets in but already I feel so lost! There's people with little market stalls out in the streets and they sell all sorts of weird things! There's loads of paintings and sculptures of people and pokémon and everything!

Ali doesn't let me stay too long near one stall. I'm confused why there's pictures of naked people and what the weird toys are. She tells me I'm not allowed to know for several more years and quickly drags me away.

I want to know why, but I'm distracted by all the sculptures on the next stall, then the one after that and the one after that too!

I know I don't know where he is, but I want to see Craig with a stall here. Although all the people here are grown-ups. It'd be weird to see him like that.

"This place is cool!" I tell Ali as I happily eat a spicy burger. I like eating with her. She doesn't tell me off for talking with my mouth full. She does it a lot too.

"It is," she says, her eyes wide as she's busy looking around at everything. "Granted, I'm still trying to figure out how some of these people have made some of these things." She takes a big bite of her burger and sprays a few people with little bits of chewed burger-bun as she says, "I mean, that thing? It's awesome, but _how_ did they make that? And that too! Everything here is amazing, outstanding and I think my burger needs more sauce."

I just smile at her. It's taken us a few days to get to Nacrene and it's strange that I have gotten used to her random changes of subject.

"We should probably find the pokémon centre at some point," she says and starts walking on her tiptoes. "I can't see any signs for one yet, but we'll need to at least get our pokémon healed up. Ah, foongus. You'd think it'd be easier to find a pokémon centre in a city, wouldn't you?"

I shrug. "We can always ask someone." And I really hope we do too. I can _finally_ get my new phone here! I can ring my parents and finally talk to them again! I'm practically leaping at each person I see just so that I can find the pokémon centre all that much quicker.

"Nah, it's alright."

I feel my brain deflate, but try to cover it with a laugh. "You're such a boy. My brother never asks anyone for directions. Neither does my dad."

"I'm not _that_ bad," she says, nose comically in the air. She picks a random street filled with more stalls and starts walking down it. Behind everything are massive old red-brick warehouses that loom up into the sky. It makes everything seem really summer-like. "I mean, there's a limit on how tomboyish I act. I've yet to get to the stage of scratching my butt in public and not being bothered who sees."

I scrunch my nose up. "My dad does that all the time."

"So does mine." She finishes her burger, scrunches up the napkins and throws them at the nearest bin. They miss completely and she pretends that it wasn't her. "My dad also tends to just randomly let rip wherever he is, then blames it on someone else."

"Let rip?" I ask.

She grins, puts a hand under her armpit, pulls her arm down and makes a fart noise. I burst out laughing and copy her. I manage to make a little squeak and keep on until I can make a real-sounding fart noise. By the time we find the pokémon centre, we're trying to make tunes as people give us really weird looks when we go past them.

"How did your dad or brother never teach you that?" she asks me as we stand in line at the pokémon centre. Eight more people to go and I can get my phone. Hurry up! Shoo! Your pokémon isn't hurt, it's just being lazy!

Did you really need to queue up to ask _that_? Jerk. Move out of the way and let me get my stuff!

Ali looks at me like she's expecting me to say something. Oh, right, she asked me something!

"They didn't know that one, I think." I try to remember if either of them ever mentioned knowing it. I can't recall anything like that, but I remember the one they taught me. "They know this one though," I say, put my hands under my mouth, wrists together and blow.

A massive fart noise comes out and a few trainers in the line laugh. One or two tut at me like old ladies, but suddenly the entire line is having a fake-fart contest.

Until the smell of an _actual_ one hits us. Then we're all grossed out and don't want to carry on.

When we're finally at the counter, my heart's racing. I can _finally_ collect my new phone here! It means I'll be able to talk to people again!

I'll be able to talk to my parents. I never thought I'd miss them as much as I do. Knowing that I can nearly hear them again makes me miss them all the more.

"Hey, are you alright?" Ali asks.

I sniff and realise I've started crying. I try to smile and hide it, even though it's way too late. "Fine," I say. "I'm fine."

She purses her lips, but she doesn't say anything. Instead she just hands over her pokémon to the person behind the desk – I don't know whether it's a man or a woman! They have a really weird haircut that's all floppy and bright yellow and a silly scarf that makes it hard to tell.

When the person turns around, Ali mouths a question of, "Was that a guy or a girl?"

I shrug and try not to giggle as it turns around and starts talking to Ali again. I look up at her; biting the inside of my cheeks and see she's trying not to laugh too. As soon as we realise we're both trying not to laugh, we both fail and descend into a fit of giggles that leaves everyone else confused.

Once I recover, I hand over Kiki's poké ball to the person behind the desk. "Um, my parents said they sent a letter here," I say nervously. I remember everything that happened and little silly things start coming to life in my head. What if the people who took Craig are watching me? What if my parents didn't really manage to run away? What if they got caught?

I haven't heard from them.

In fact, I'll only know if they're safe if there's actually a letter here.

What if there's not?

What if they got caught?

"What's the name under?" the man-woman-thing asks me.

I try to calm down as much as I can. It's under Grandma's name. I can't tell the man-lady-thing that; I need to remember it.

"Sharlotain," I say and spell it out for the he-she-possibly unholy monster. I don't know why Grandma used to have such a weird name. All I know is that it changed when she married Grandad, then Mum changed hers from that when she married Dad.

I don't want to change my name if I get married. I'll end up with a silly name. Like Quackleton.

"Here you are," the man-thing says and hands me a brown package. I thank him – it? – and barely manage to restrain myself from leaping at the package and opening the entire thing then and there.

Ali looks interested as I walk over to her and try to stop myself from opening it. I'm meant to be keeping things secret. I can't keep secrets if I open it in front of everyone. Especially not near the man-woman-thing. I don't trust something that I can't tell whether it's a boy or a girl, like pokémon.

"What you got there?" Ali asks. She's leaning forwards, tucking her hair behind an ear and trying to see who it's from.

I manage to stop myself from hiding it away from her. Jerry told me that when you want to get away with something, just act normal. It's how he always manages to keep out of trouble whenever he comes back home. At least, until Dad gets Bruce out and threatens to read his mind.

"My new phone," I say and shake the parcel. Something inside makes a sound; it sounds like a phone and a few sheets of paper. I'm not sure what else there might be in there.

Maybe there's bubble-wrap!

That stuff is awesome.

"Aren't you going to open it?" she asks. She looks like she wants to open it herself.

"Not yet," I say, even though I really, _really_ want to. I should wait until its safe. I know that much. "I'll open it later. I want to make sure I don't lose anything."

She laughs. "You're smarter than I was at your age. I got too excited with one parcel and opened it in a really busy pokémon centre. Long story short, everything went everywhere and I ended up covering the waiting room in my clean underwear."

I'd be horrified if that happened to me!

"Exactly," she says, understanding my facial expressions alone. "Come on; we should probably head up to the gym. I need to book myself a battle."

"Alright," I say, somewhat sulkily. I want to stay behind and get my new phone.

But almost like she's reading my mind, Ali says, "You know the gym's built into the back of the museum, right?"

I think I'm the only ten year old that loves museums for things other than dinosaur bones.

"Let's go!" I declare and hastily shove my parcel into my bag. It can wait for more important things. Like the museum! The one in Accumula had something about cavemen a few weeks ago. It was saying about how they managed to cope with life before they found pokémon and how they had to do everything themselves.

I tell Ali about it all on the way to this museum. She says she remembers some of it from her history lessons, but not as much as I know.

I grin up at her. "I like history. It's interesting. They used to sacrifice people to their gods, did you know? They put them up on altars and cut their hearts out while they were still alive."

I find it interesting. Ali however, shudders and clamps both hands over her heart.

"That's slightly disturbing," she says. "The only things in history I know these days are warped by someone else's view. Like everything with assassins and Templars. I don't think they really had freaky future-technology apples that showed them amazing things, did they?"

"I dunno," I say. "Maybe. I never learnt about them. Is it interesting?"

"From what I've seen, yeah." She starts swinging her hands like she's waving an invisible sword at people. "Free-running through ancient times and killing people? So much more fun than reading about something in a book."

I don't remember anything like that, _ever_, in my history lessons. "I'm confused."

"Video game," she says. It explains a lot. Jerry has a load of shooting ones that are confusing and Dad has a few sports ones that are boring. I look up and see a huge old beige stoned building in front of me. Loads of pillars hold up the roof near the entrance and there's massive posters advertising something to do with 'The Lost Civilisation'.

Because _that_ narrows it down. There's loads of lost civilisations! I tried making a list of them before and ran out of paper!

Although that could be because I got bored and started making random little doodles everywhere. Then Craig made a picture of me drawing things that was amazing. I think it's still up in my room somewhere.

But wait.

Mum and Dad said they need to move house.

Are they going to take my stuff with them?

"Wanna go see the exhibit?" Ali asks me as we enter the museum. It has that really weird museum smell – like everything's being preserved and yet not at the same time. "I think it's free to get into."

"Maybe," I say, swinging my arms from side to side. I stare up at the posters and try to see just what they happen to be showing. I can't help but wish Craig could be here too. It would be pretty cool that I could see all the things and then he could draw them all for us both. I sigh to myself and try to look on the bright side; it's bound to be interesting in there.

Unless it's that one like the exhibit in the museum at home. It's a big fake-house with loads of gross bugs hiding underneath everything in the kitchen. Jerry told me that's what everywhere is actually like and I was scared to go anywhere near the toaster for a month, through fear of swarms of bugs alone.

"Let's stay away from anything with bugs though," I say, images of bugs hiding underneath everything vivid in my mind.

Ali smirks and holds her thumb away from her finger. "Are you scared of bugs? They're like this big!"

"I'm not scared of them!" I hiss instantly. "I like bugs. I like your heracross. I don't like _swarms_ of bugs. I saw a video online where someone switched on a light and _hundreds_ of cockroaches started scuttling everywhere!" I shiver, hold myself and glare at the floor as if it's hiding them from my sight.

Traitorous floor. I know you're hiding swarms of the things. Don't give me that blank-faced innocent look. I know what you're planning.

"In that case, I agree with you," Ali says, even as she's turning around and staring at the insides of the main hall. It's huge and the walls are a really dark red colour.

And there's a full skeleton on display in the middle of the room!

It's meant to be an ancient pokémon, or something. Scarily enough, after our conversation, it looks almost like a bug.

Ali creeps up close to it and pokes it with her finger. She shudders, yanks her finger back and looks at the thing as if it's going to suddenly leap up and eat her. "Bugs should _not_ be bigger than a house."

"They used to be," I say as I look up at it. I try to imagine it alive, but I keep coming back to the mental image of loads of little bugs crawling underneath the fridge.

Except now it's hundreds of bugs that are as big as this thing, hiding underneath the earth itself.

I try to distract myself. "Ages ago, before humans were around, bugs were really, _really_ big. Bigger than scolipedes! They had massive leeches too! They were this big!" I say and stretch my arms out as wide as they can go. Once they can't go any further, I try to jump and make them magically extend.

"Is it bad that I want to see a bug that big?" Ali asks, her head tilting at the big bug-skeleton. "Okay," she says with a shake of her head. "Let's leave this ancient skeleton and try to find the gym. Then we'll go see the exhibit. Unless you want to see the thing first?"

"I'm okay," I say, happily skipping through the hall and peering down the different corridors. I see something about old humans and non-pokémon animals, then loads of dead, stuffed pokémon staring out at the world from behind glass.

It's kinda creepy.

Yet at the same time, I want to get something and make them all come alive.

Dad told me once that there's a pokémon in Hoenn that can sneak into the bodies of the dead and possess them. I wonder how much trouble it would cause if it got locked in a museum?

It'd be like that film! I grin to myself as I imagine the exhibits in the museum coming to life and all falling under my command. How awesome would it be if I went somewhere riding atop a really huge ancient bug skeleton? People would scream and run away and I'd have a really good evil laugh to go with it!

"Can you do an evil laugh?" I ask Ali.

She snorts and gives me a concerned look. "Where'd that come from? Are you building mental pictures of me sitting in a big chair and stroking a big, black, fluffy purrloin or something?"

"No!" I say and laugh at the idea. "I was thinking about all these exhibits coming to life and then letting me take over the world with them. I'd need a really good evil laugh."

Ali doesn't say anything. She just stares at me. I'm slightly worried that something's crawling on the wall behind me or something when she finally descends into fits of silly laughter.

"If I ever manage to really get a good evil laugh, you'll be the first person I demonstrate it too, okay?" She smiles and slides her hands into her back pockets. "And in a normal way. Not in one of those I've-just-masterminded-your-doom sorta situation."

"Okay then," I say. "What way are we going?" I ask as I try not to get distracted by everything around me. There's people here suddenly, all wandering around the museum and looking all stuffy and boring. And then there's the parents shouting at their kids because they're running away and trying to poke everything they can see.

"Just up here," Ali says, pointing with her head. "From what I've heard, it's just past the library and then down a flight of stairs to get to the reception. So basically we miss most of the things that are happening in the museum."

"Ah," I grunt, a little crestfallen. I did want to see at least something before I went to the gym part!

Well, something other than a massive skeleton that reminds me of insect-invasions.

I look up at the doorway and see the familiar symbol of the Unova League Crest – three dragons; one black, one white and one grey, twirling into one circular symbol. It's above all the gyms that I've seen and is on everything there is to do with Unova. Mum still has her certificates from when she entered one of the championships over here. It's all over that, with really weird scribbles and attached to little photos she got of all the events that happened there.

Ali clicks in front of my face to get my attention. I blink, feel my eyes narrow on their new, closer target and look up at her smirking face.

"Thinking of entering a gym battle?" she asks me.

I think about it, but ultimately decide against it. "No. I'm not sure what I'm doing yet." Maybe once I read what my parents have written in that letter I might have some idea of something.

As long as I don't have to go and stay with Aunt Sally. I'd have to sit there with her cats – freaky hairless meowths that supposedly come from Kanto. Except when I asked Jerry about it, he said they all have hair. Ali said the same too when I asked her. Maybe Aunt Sally's just weird and shaves her cats. I let Ali know about my theories and she falls apart laughing at something I don't understand.

"You can come watch this one if you like," Ali offers once she's recovered from laughing. She's got her pokédex in her hands and she's flicking through loads of different pages, moving them faster than I can keep up with. "It might inspire you or something." She hits a page, sees something and snorts a laugh again. I try to peer at it, find her staring at a page about meowths and find myself confused yet again.

"Maybe," I say, still not certain. "But you swear too much. If Kiki heard me speaking like you do, it'd needle me really badly."

"Thankfully my dad never taught any of my pokémon that," she says, still not looking up from her pokédex. "If he had… well, my starters are capable of breaking bones, easily."

"You had more than one starter?" I ask her. Most people have just the one, if that. Some of my friends told me about when they started their journeys and they had to go capture pokémon themselves or even pick one up from the pokémon centre or something.

I try to think about having had two pokémon. Instead I imagine owning two of Kiki and shudder at the thought.

"Yeah," Ali says, completely oblivious to my train of thought. "Two tyrogue. Muay and Tai."

"What's a tyrogue?" I ask her. I think it's something that fights – all her pokémon do. But other than that, I'm not too sure. I know it wasn't on any of my tests in school.

At least I think it wasn't. There was that one test I didn't show for and it _could_ have been on that, maybe.

"Look it up," Ali says and waves her pokédex at me. "These things can do more than just tell you how well your pokémon is doing, you know?"

I follow her advice and fish my out my pokédex, but only after having searched through almost all my pockets. I find the tyrogue quickly after that – a skinny brown thing with a freaky head and strange legs. It goes on about how they evolve into one of three different pokémon as I realise we've stopped walking as Ali is talking to someone behind a desk.

I look up to see who it is –

- and my heart stops before starting again as fast as a running dodrio.

Everything about the woman is familiar. The dark skin, the big brown eyes, the kind smile and more importantly; the big afro that's been dyed blue.

I realise I'm gawking like a beached magikarp and try to remember how to say anything. It's like that one time I saw that man with bright, glow-in-the-dark yellow hair, but so much more awesome at the same time!

It's Lenora!

A fact which I manage to squeak in a _really_ high-pitched voice.

She raises an eyebrow and leans on her elbows to look at me. "Yes, I'm Lenora, hun. You can speak honey, I'm not going to bite."

I'm practically bouncing out of my shoes when I squeal, "Oh my god!" and launch myself into my bag. I feel both Lenora and Ali looking at me but I ignore it in search of more important treasures.

When I find it, I present it with pride.

Battered, slightly beaten and torn at the edges, but it's still an awesome book that covers _loads_ of history!

And Lenora happens to have written almost half of it.

"Can I have your autograph?" I ask, but say it that quickly it sounds like one squished word. She looks at me, then to my beaten book and manages to smile just a little bit more.

"I'm impressed," she says as she takes it gently from me. "Most people who want autographs are usually those that know me for pokémon battling. Or those that are trying to get me to sign something so that they can get my gym badge without a battle." She opens the book and flicks through the pages slowly, then turns back to look at me again. "You seem to have read a lot of this. And made a few notes too."

"Y-yeah," I say quickly, nodding and making my hair fall into my face. I try to pry it out of the way and be able to see her again. "It didn't have everything I want, but it's really, really good and I like it, so I copied some things from other books into it where they fit."

"I can see that," she says, still flicking through it, her smile growing bigger every minute.

Ali looks from her to me, mouths, "Geek," and pokes me in the head. I frown at her, try to swat her hand away and then attempt to act innocent when Lenora looks back to me.

"Your sister seems to have a keen knack for studying, Miss Fischer," Lenora says as she fills out a little card. "I can give you a gym battle in four days. May I ask why she's travelling with you if she's obviously so intent on studying?"

Ali blinks like a deerling trapped in the headlights. Then she takes the card and smiles as she says, "She's not my sister. As annoying as my actual one, but we're not actually related."

"Oh," Lenora says quickly. "Forgive me. I simply assumed-"

"It's alright," Ali says with a wave of her hand. "I suppose she's not that bad to be considered related to, are you?" She pats my head and grins in my face.

I scowl at her and try to smack her hand away. "You're as bad as my brother," I growl. "But he smells more."

Lenora laughs as she finishes looking through my book. "Before I sign this, may I ask; why are you travelling? It's simply because honey, you seem like you'd excel in education."

I tell her about how I was went to go to the big history school, but my parents couldn't afford it. Then I say that I ended up going on a trainer journey so that I can get into there on a scholarship, but I just need to start earning badges first. All the while Lenora's sitting there, chin in her hand and nodding along.

"That's… interesting," she says when I'm done. If she finds that interesting, I wonder what she'd say if I told her about the dead phione. "It does sound like Castelia is missing out on something. However," she says as she starts flicking through my book again, "I think I can propose something better."

"Really?" I ask. I can't stop myself from clamping my hands together over my heart. I feel like some silly cartoon character but don't care because Lenora is talking to me!

"Really," she says with a nod. She picks up a pen, twirls it in her hand and scribbles something down on a piece of paper. Then she frowns, scrunches up the paper and tosses it at a bin. "I'd rather talk about this in my office. I'm only on the desk while my receptionist is on break – we're short staffed today. Give me two minutes and another one of my staff should come down and cover."

I nod excitedly and spin around to Ali, bouncing up and down and grinning like a lunatic. "That's _Lenora!_" I gush and try to discretely point at her.

Ali laughs. "I've figured that out. Why didn't you tell me you were a fan of hers? I could have told you she was the gym leader here."

"I didn't know!" I try to whisper, but it comes out as more of a shout. "I thought she was a teacher, or an archaeologist or _something! _I didn't know she was a gym leader too! That's kinda cool…"

"All the gym leaders have some other occupation." Ali starts counting off people on her fingers and tries to tell me what they do besides being gym leaders. "In fact," she says after explaining about eight of them to me, "Unova's probably the only country that encourages trainers to study something else alongside pokémon, just to make sure we can do something should we fail at training."

That explains why Jerry's always hanging out with Dad whenever he's back and doing loads of maths. I thought he was just a geek.

Well, he _is_ a geek, but he's also learning maths too. I just don't know if that makes him more of a geek or kinda smart.

Actually, wait… its Jerry.

In that case, definitely makes him a geek.

"So what do you do then?" I ask Ali. I don't think she does maths, somehow. She'd end up punching the calculator or something.

She looks awkward and pulls at a longer piece of hair by her ear. "Well… I kinda study psychology with one of those online test places."

"Cool!" I declare. "Does that mean you can tell people they're insane and have them locked away for all eternity?" I grin happily at the thought of being able to do that. "But wait, you train fighters too."

"I know," she says and starts pulling the ends of her hair off. "I go against a lot of the stereotypes fighters are meant to have. My dad says as much whenever I tell him about any of my test scores. But I wasn't going to be a builder, like him."

"What about your mum? What does she do?"

She shrugs. "I dunno. She left before I was born."

"Oh," I say. Then moments later, as I see Ali starting to smirk, I realise the logic behind what she said. "Hey wait! How does that work?"

"It doesn't," she says with a snigger. "She died when I was born. So I guess at the moment, what she does is mostly decompose."

"Oh… uh, sorry," I say stupidly. I don't really know what to say to that.

"It's okay. Not like you knew." She tucks what remains of her hair behind her ear and turns me towards the desk again. "Looks like her backup's arrived."

Lenora's behind her desk, standing this time, with some brown-haired trainer. He smiles at Ali and she pulls back and tries to ignore him. I think it's the pimples that make him look scary. Or the really insane ear hair.

"_Ear hair,"_ I whisper to Ali. She tries to tell me to shut up whilst trying not to laugh at the same time. She fails at both and has to turn away from the desk to try and return to normal.

"Alright, that's done," Lenora says, hands on her hips. She gestures down one of the corridors. "My office is down here. Follow me. Your… travel buddy? Well, Miss Fischer is free to join us too."

I look up at Ali. She looks like she's going to come along until she glances back to the museum. "I saw something about pokémon fighters in the museum. I think I'm going to go nose around there, see if I can pick up a few tricks," she says as she jerks her thumb behind her. "I'll be around there when you're done. Have fun," she says, pats me on the back and walks back off into the museum.

I realise that's she's leaving me alone. With Lenora.

I think I may start squeaking my words again now.

"Castelia's a good school, but it's not actually the best," Lenora says as she leads me down the corridor. It's full of pieces of paper hung in frames on the walls and various pictures of different pokémon. "There's a really good one in Anville City – it's relatively unheard of because of its remote location. However, it's a fantastic school and college – not only do I give lectures there, but occasionally Cynthia does too, in addition to a few other high-ranking historians and archaeologists."

I think I'm already in love with the place.

And slightly angry that I never found out about it earlier.

Stupid internet search engines. Why couldn't they tell me about this school?

"Generally, it's only open to the best of the best – the elitists with the biggest brains and the most money." She stops in front of a door, unlocks it and lets me go in first. It's a massive office with a little stack of papers on the desk, a big computer and what looks like an old serperior skeleton hanging on one of the walls. Other little fossils are in glass boxes around the office, as are some photos of people I've never seen before.

She lets me sit down before she takes her seat and switches on her computer. "I went there myself, actually," she says with a quick smile at me as she begins looking at something on her computer. "And I'm telling you all of this, because I think you're good enough to go there, honey."

"Really?" I ask, heart swelling. I don't want this to be another trick, like how my nose will grow if I lie or something like that. I don't think I'll be able to take _this_ being all a lie too.

"Really," she confirms. I pretty much do a happy dance then and there. "They do have a scholarship programme, which I feel will benefit you the most. However, it does require that instead of the five badges for Castelia, you'll need a full set of eight."

Eight badges?

_Eight badges?_

But it took Jerry over a year to get eight badges! I don't want to still be travelling in a year!

At least, I guess it's better than having to get all twenty badges from somewhere.

She nods almost as if she understands my thoughts. "You see, this school does a lot of fieldtrips – often into rather dangerous places. For their safety, as well as your own, it's generally preferred that you can take care of yourself outside. Rich kids get in through having their mothers and fathers pay expensive fees for rental pokémon, but people like you and I?" She waves her hand between us as she speaks. "We get in there and succeed with our own strength, not that of Mummy and Daddy."

I manage to grin at her. I like her all the more now. Especially because she's saying I'm like her.

She presses a few keys, clicks on something and then turns her computer round to face me. "Unlike most badge requirements though, this school wants you to have eight specific badges – one of which happens to be my own."

"Oh," I say. It's all I can do. My hands feel all sweaty and I try rubbing them on my jeans. I have to beat her in a pokémon battle? But she's giving me all this advice and being really nice too! It feels weird to have to battle her afterwards.

"To break it down, you'll need to travel outside of Unova to get all these badges." She grabs a sheet of paper from her desk and signs at the bottom of it, writes in a little bit more and passes it over to me. "Take this and keep it safe. Unova is pretty strict with importing and exporting pokémon; this is a permission slip signed from me, on behalf of the pokémon league saying that you're being given special clearance to leave and come into Unova."

Special clearance? It sounds awesome. It makes me feel like a spy! I'm struck speechless and all I can manage to do is nod like a moron.

She leans forwards on the desk and her face becomes all serious. "However, there are restrictions with this. Once you enter a country, you're only allowed to come back into Unova with their native pokémon once you have the specific badges listed. So Sinnoh won't be terribly hard; you only need one badge from there. Johto, Hoenn and Kanto, however, have two required badges for this school. And the more badges you have, the stronger pokémon the gym leader uses."

"Okay," I say as I try to plan out what I'll need to do. I really want to do this! It sounds awesome! There's no way else I can get back into school – and a really good one at that! "Can I get your badge last?"

She smiles again. "You can get them in whatever order you wish. However, like it says, if you want to bring a Kantonese pokémon back into Unova, you'll need the badges from Kanto first. It's to show that you know how to handle those pokémon you have and won't release them into the wild and upset the local ecosystem."

"Like what happened to the audino?" I ask, remembering what Ali told me.

"Exactly that," she says seriously. "Now, you're free to think this over as much as you like-"

"I want to do it!" I say quickly. "Sorry," I say, cheeks bright red as I realise I've interrupted her, "but I really want to do this! It's really good and I really want to study history and not have to be a pokémon trainer for all that long because I'm sure my pokémon hates me."

"It's good to know you're eager." She spins her computer screen back round to herself and makes it print something off. While it does, she says, "I'm sure your pokémon will come round in time. Whether or not it hates you, all pokémon have personalities, like humans. They eventually come to care for you, it's just usually a matter of time, honey."

Somehow, the thought of Kiki being nice to me manages to scare me a little bit more. At least when something's mean, you know they're just being mean. When someone's being nice to you, it's harder to see when they're secretly trying to be mean too.

Or at least, that's what Dad always tells me.

She stands up, picks up the papers from the printer and shows them to me. "You'll need to get each gym leader to sign this, but you can just have them send an email of proof to your pokédex too. We only use paper copies for backup, just in case all the electronics die or whatnot. This one is just basically declaring what pokémon you have on you when you leave Unova and then when you enter again, with whether or not you have the badges from their specific home country. And these," she says and points to a pile of papers instead, "are the forms you and your parents, guardians or whoever will need to fill out."

"Okay," I say, somewhat nervous about the massive pile of papers. What if I lose them somewhere? What if my bag gets wet and they just turn into a big pile of smoosh?

Apparently Lenora sees my distress, for she says, "You can get a copy of these online too, at the web address on the bottom of the paper. Paper copies usually scare people, but some parents seem to prefer them."

"I think my dad will be happy," I say as I look at the papers. He likes filling out forms for everything. He's always doing so and keeping on at Mum about them, then offering to do them for her.

"While we're here, if I could have your pokédex?"

I manage to find it and hand it to her. She slots it into her computer and presses a few things. There's a big mechanical noise and finally it pops out and she hands it back to me.

"I've stored a digital copy of everything on there for you," she says, tapping the machine. "There's also everything I've told you on there, plus my email address if you happen to have any further questions about everything. And more importantly," she picks up my book from her desk, pulls out a pen and scribbles something within the front cover, "here's your book back. It's quite clear you get a lot of use out of it."

I nod even as I'm busy reading what she's written. One part of it tells me how I shouldn't give up until I achieve my dreams. I look back up and grin at her. "It's really interesting," I say. "And thank you! This is really amazing!"

"My pleasure," she says with a little laugh. "Now would you like me to lead you back to the exit?"

I shake my head. "It's okay, I can find it." She tells me where it is anyway. I manage to even get a hug off her before I practically skip back into the museum and find Ali poking the stuffed remains of a conkeldurr. She doesn't notice me and I sneak up behind her, smack her back and scare her so much she screams!

She also whirls around and tries to punch me. But because I'm so small her fist goes over my head and instead she punches some random guy stood behind me. I fall apart into a mad giggle fit as she goes bright red and tries to apologise to the man, even as his nose bleeds down over his face and shirt.

"I hope you're happy," she growls at me, her face bright red as the man storms off. I'm too busy laughing to say anything at all. "So how'd it go? What did Lenora have to say?"

When I manage to stop laughing, I'm practically jumping high enough to touch the ceiling. "She told me I can go to this really good school in Anville Town if I get enough badges!"

"That's good then," Ali says, smiling along with me. "How many do you need?"

"Eight," I say, pouting a little. "And from specific gym leaders too!"

"Like who?" she asks. I pull out the sheet of paper and show her. "Ooh. I recognise a few of these. Roark's in Sinnoh. Morty's in Johto – he gave me _loads_ of trouble; he uses ghosts. And Blaine? That might be kinda hard; he likes fiery pokémon. I'm not certain who the others are though."

"I dunno who they are," I say as I stash the paper away safely. "But I have to beat Lenora too! And I'm going to beat them all!"

Ali smiles and pats my head. "Keep that attitude up and you'll go far. Now come on, let's go see the rest of the museum."

**-O-O-O-**

I wait until it's dark outside and Ali's gone to sleep before I actually open the parcel my parents have sent me. Inside is a letter, some spare clothes, batteries for my camera and my new phone.

I don't think paper and a phone have ever looked so amazing in all my life.

As I wait for my new phone to charge – it charges _nowhere_ near fast enough! – I start reading the letter they've sent me. It's mostly telling me to be safe, how proud they are of me and that they're fine. They've put Jerry's number on there too, for me to ring him when he gets to Unova, as well as putting their new number, their new address and that I have to ring them as soon as my phone's alive.

Even though it's nearly eleven at night when I ring them, they still pick up before the second ring.

"Sweetie?"

The moment I hear Mum's voice, I'm practically in fits of tears. I hear Dad behind her, laugh and cry at the same time as I hear his squeaky phone voice and them trying to put me on loudspeaker. I sit in the bathroom, on the edge of the bath for ages and end up telling them about everything that's happened.

Dad tells me that I should thank Kiki for him for stopping me from swearing. He also says that I'm brilliant for beating up the guy that beat Kiki with his gross beedrill. Mum tells me about how Jerry tried catching a purrloin when he was starting out as a trainer too. Apparently he actually caught one and named it Tom. I end up laughing as she tells me how it tried to eat him, then ran away back into the grass as soon as it was able to.

I tell them all about Sean and Ali and that Ali's travelling with me. Mum seems happy that I've got another girl travelling with me – Dad just seems happy I have someone looking out for me. When I tell them about what Lenora said, they seem almost as excited as I was about it all. Until they realise it means I'll have to leave the country too, then they're kinda sad that both Jerry and I won't be in Unova.

I ask them if they've heard anything from Craig yet. They say they haven't. Apparently that whole area on the beach got buried in a freak landslide the day after Craig and I found the dead phione, but Dad says it should never have happened, because there wasn't anything around big enough to bury that section of the beach.

It's nearly two in the morning by the time they're telling me to go to bed and call them again the day after. I really don't want to – just hearing them again makes me homesick. It's only when Dad threatens to send Bruce after me that I reluctantly agree to go to bed.

Before I go, they do tell me one little bit of awesome news.

Apparently my brother's going to get into Nacrene in two days' time.

I don't think it's possible for time to go nearly as fast as I want it to.


	5. When Lightning Strikes Twice

_Dear Diary,_

_Morning and night. Cold and hot. Near and far. Good and evil._

_Everything in this world is built upon opposites._

_For every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction._

_Surely, this means I should have an equal. An opposite._

_It makes me wonder; evil is often described, but never touched upon. Too much good can sway into evil. Too little evil can sway into good._

_Are they opposites, or two parts of a whole?_

…

_Does that mean I have an opposite? Something to make me whole?_

_Or am I merely overanalysing existing theories and relating them to myself?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|When Lightning Strikes Twice|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

I have come to realise that Kiki doesn't want the translator collar.

An armful of needles is a very clear indication of that.

I scowl at my pokémon and swear revenge on it somehow. Ali looks like she wants to remove the needles and chase after it herself. I can't blame her. In fact, I'm not certain whether I'd join her or stop her.

"I think we should stop trying now," Ali grunts as she flops down on the ground and pulls needles from her clothes. "It's pretty clear she doesn't want this to happen. Maybe she wants you to understand her without it? Some pokémon are like that."

"That's stupid," I declare and fall to the floor, glaring at my mutinous pokémon. It cackles and wanders off somewhere close. "Why wouldn't it want me to understand it?"

Ali shrugs. "A test, maybe? Some pokémon are like that. I'm more confused as to how it manages to produce that many spikes and not seem to run out of any."

"Dad tried explaining it to me before," I say as I stretch on the grass and flop onto my back. I try hard to remember it all, but I mostly remember being confused. "It's something about how it's not their real needles they shoot, that's why they've still got them. They shoot pressurised air from holes in their body that turn solid when they leave its body." I scratch my head, try to think of more and eventually succumb to checking my pokédex. "It's crystallised sap," I read from the screen. "When it leaves their bodies, it becomes solid."

"That explains why it's sticky," Ali says as she wipes her hands on her clothes. "Now do you see why I deal with fighters? So much easier to understand that pokémon punches wall, wall breaks."

"Pokémon are confusing," I agree. "I need to catch more, but I don't really want to. What if they're all like Kiki?"

"I doubt it'd come to that." Ali leans back on her elbows and stares up at the sky. "Pokémon are all different, like humans. Sure, some have similar traits, but they all have distinct personalities."

"Maybe," I say, drawing circles in the mud with my finger. "But what if they're _worse?"_

"Worse how?"

"Worse, like Jerry's dodrio!" I draw a picture of it in the dirt, but it just looks like a mutated stickman. "It has one head that just randomly stares into nothing and drools on people. I don't want a pokémon like that! What would I do with it?"

"Get it adopted?" she suggests. "Or train it to be really strong, so that you can use its appearance to trick people. Or maybe just make it chase after a carrot on a stick, if it comes to that."

I grin at the thought of leading Kiki around like that. At least it would distract it long enough so that I could curse without getting hit. It doesn't seem to realise cursing is a natural reaction after getting hurt! 'Ouch' can only go so far!

"I should get back to training my pokémon," Ali says as she stands up. "It would be nice if I could slack off for more of the day, but unfortunately, my guys can be a bit… well, angry, I guess, if I'm not around. They tend to beat up trainer pokémon a lot and get me into trouble."

I try to look up whilst leaning down and manage only to stare straight into the sun. Eyes burning and watering, I scrunch them shut and tell Ali I'm fine, even though I know she doesn't believe me.

At least while she's training her pokémon, I can make Kiki train. Or sit down and read. Or maybe even ring my parents again.

Anything to pass the time until tomorrow.

So naturally, I get distracted in training Kiki, nearly end up being eaten by a random sewaddle as I sit in the tree on the phone and then have a pidove try to fly off with one of my books.

Stupid nature. It's so inconvenient and evil.

**-O-O-O-**

The pokémon centre in Nacrene is buzzing with people the next day. I shy away from them all and try to keep to the outside of the crowds. They all watch something on the television about Sinnoh and something to do with how it's rebuilding after some big tragedy hit it.

Probably something to do with the Galactics, or whoever they are. In Unova we had Plasma who tried stealing the dragons to take over the world. But Sinnoh had the crazy robot-guy who wanted to create a whole _new_ world!

People are weird.

I squeeze past everyone and end up waiting outside the pokémon centre for a little while. It's kind of chilly so early in the morning, but in a nice way, before all the heat hits and there's smelly, sweaty people walking everywhere near me and occasionally on me.

I still have a big bruise on my toes where some woman ran my foot over with her trolley. She didn't even apologise either!

Then she saw Ali's angry gurdurr and didn't stop apologising.

I keep checking my phone for the time. Each time I look, it keeps saying the same time.

I think it's broken!

Oh wait, it moved.

Man, why is time going so _slow_?

I grumble about my phone and time itself when I hear a distant, triple shriek. Instantly I'm as excited as a lillipup with a chewtoy. I feel like running around and telling people what's happening, just like one too!

I never thought I'd be this happy to hear that shrieking, weird bird.

Somehow, I manage to completely miss Jerry ever coming near me. Instead, I only realise he's actually here when a pair of hands clamp over my eyes and a voice says, "Guess who."

I laugh, spin around and hug him with enough force to send him back a step. I hear him laugh and then he pats me on the head. "Hey Squirt. So what's this I hear about you being a pokémon trainer now?"

I realise I'm crying when everything seems blurry. He looks so different to when I saw him last! He's got silly hair on his chin and little patches of mud on his face. His hair is the same colour as mine, but his is going all curly from how long it is. His eyes are brown like mine, but he's got Dad's fatter nose.

And he smells like dodrio poo.

But I don't care because he's finally here to help me!

"It's all my fault!" I wail and bury my face in his jacket. He tries to stop me from crying, but I just can't seem to be able to control it. Instead I just babble stupid things into his jacket, even as his screechy dodrio comes up beside us and pokes me in the shoulder with three separate beaks.

"Come on," he says and grabs my hand. "I'll get us some ice cream or something like that, then you can tell me everything that's happened. I take it there's been a lot of shit?"

His dodrio shrieks and pecks him with all three beaks. He yelps and tries to fight it away. I just laugh at the familiarity of it all. And mostly, because I'm not the only one that suffers with what Dad taught our pokémon.

Jerry winces as he rubs his arm. "Six years later and I still haven't been able to train her out of it. Dad's evil."

"Kiki still keeps attacking me too," I whisper conspiringly. "We should have found a way to train his pokémon to get him back! Every time he says something maths-like, his kadabra could spin him around in the air!"

Jerry snorts. "You know Dad gets really motion sick though."

"Exactly!" I grin with the thought of it all. "So then he says something like," I cough and try to get his voice right, "'_Oh Carol, the numbers for our bills this month do not add up.' _And then Bruce picks him up and spins him in the air, then Dad pukes everywhere! He'll never say anything maths-like again!"

"It's evil," Jerry says. He grins and taps the tips of his fingers together. "I like it. We need to figure out a way to do this."

The one flaw in my plan. "Poo," I say. Jerry's dodrio glares at me with only one of its heads. I poke my tongue out at it. I'm not certain if the dopey head is trying to blow a raspberry back at me or is just being weird.

Jerry finds his way around Nacrene better than Ali manages to. He takes me to this little café and lets me choose what I want to eat and doesn't even lecture me about speaking with my mouth full!

I tell him everything that's happened in hushed whispers. He nods about everything and says nothing. At the end he asks me if he can see the photo I took. When I hand him my camera, he squints at it and moves the camera in his hands, almost like he thinks that will make it come alive or something.

"You really shouldn't keep this on here," he says as he holds it out. "What if someone finds it or something?"

I snatch it from him and hold it protectively. It's _my_ picture! No one's going to see it unless I show them it!

Or maybe if they steal my camera.

But that's not going to happen!

I hope.

"I want it," I say stubbornly. "It's… I don't know why. It made me do this. I want to be able to look at its picture and be angry at it."

"Whatever." He sighs and pokes at his milkshake with his straw. "So, you know where Mum and Dad are now?"

"Mh-hm," I grunt. "I don't know what's happening now though. Is that our new home?"

He shrugs, finishes off his drink and then leans across the table. "Maybe. I guess so. It's weird; we grew up in Accumula. Now we're…. well, we're elsewhere."

"Yeah…" I agree, guilt heavy on my heart. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," he says, though I'm not sure he means it. He's wearing his lying face. Mum and Dad have never noticed it, but I always know when Jerry's lying. "It's not like you could help it, right? And Craig."

"I don't know where he is still," I say sadly. "He's my best friend and he's disappeared! We were gonna go to the same school now. Or maybe ones close by, since I can't go to Castelia."

"I think that's the least of your worries now," Jerry says. "So what're you doing now? Trainers usually have to earn badges, you know? Dad said as well that I should look out for you, help you get out of the country if you want to."

He did? It surprises me. I thought Dad wanted me to stay in Unova.

Then again, maybe I'll be safe in another country. With no creepy dead pokémon making my friends disappear.

"I met Lenora!" I tell him proudly. "She gave me forms for me to get into a special school! I need to get eight specific badges though. Hers too, but I'm going to get that one last."

"Really?" he asks. He seems interested. And jealous. That makes me happy. "Where from?"

"Everywhere," I say, mouth full of chocolate. "Here and Sinnoh I only need one badge though."

"I can take you to Sinnoh, if you like," Jerry offers. He smiles, reaches over and rubs my head with his knuckles. "You'll be making me one of the really uncool trainers, travelling with my kid sister. But I guess I can put up with it, so long as you behave yourself."

"I _always_ behave myself!" I declare, pout and fold my arms.

He snorts and taps the back of my head. "That's a lie and both you and I know it, Squirt."

"I'm not a squirt," I grouse.

"You are." He puts his hand on my head and draws it over to him. "See? Not even up to my shoulders. And that's sitting down. When we stand up, you're barely over my chest."

"You're just a tall freak!" I declare. "Just because you're tall and… freaky!"

"Whatever," he says with a laugh. "Come on then, eat up." He pushes my plate towards me impatiently. "If you're quick, I think we can get a boat to Sinnoh today."

I'm about to dive into my food when I stop and realise I'm forgetting someone. "What about Ali?"

Jerry looks confused. "Ali?"

I start waving my hands madly at him. "Ali! The girl I told you about! The one that's been travelling with me! She's cool and she has awesome pokémon! Much better than your freaky dodrio. Can't I ask her if she wants to come?"

He gives me a really awkward look. "I don't know if I've got enough money for three boat tickets…"

"That's okay, she can't leave until she's had her gym battle here." I start planning it out in my head. Ali wanted to go to Sinnoh anyway. We can tour the world and help each other collect badges, just like in the shows!

Except in those, when they meet mythical pokémon, people don't start disappearing.

But we'll still be a good team! Ali's super strong, I'm awesome and Jerry's… _Jerry_.

"Can we ask her?" I somehow manage to stop myself from leaping up and down like an excited puppy. "_Please?"_

He pulls a face at me. I laugh at how much he looks like Dad when he does that. "Fine," he grumbles.

I cheer and hug him. "Thank you! You never know, she might like you and then she can be your girlfriend!"

He goes bright red and chokes on what remains of his drink. "I-I haven't even met this girl!"

"You'll like her," I say, poking my cake with a stupidly small spoon. "And she's old, like you!"

He groans this time. "You know what Squirt? I'm not old. I don't need my little sister setting me up and most importantly; if I ever mentioned to any girl that she was old, I'd get my face punched."

I consider it, then nod in agreement. "Ali would punch you. She likes punching things. She's a fighter!"

He sighs again. "Just… just eat the rest of your food. Then we'll find this friend of yours and ask her if she wants to come with us to Sinnoh. And if – _if_ – she does, if you keep this act up of trying to make her my girlfriend, I'm going to set Elizabeth on you."

Threatening me with your scary dodrio?

I'm _so_ going to embarrass you like you've never been embarrassed before.

**-O-O-O-**

I ring Ali as we leave the café so I can find out where she is. She tells me to meet her at the little green just outside of town we've been training in a lot lately.

Along the way, Jerry asks me all sorts of things. Like how Kiki's training is going, how I'm finding travelling and a lot of questions about Ali.

I grin to myself. "You like her!"

"I haven't even _met_ her!" he says, voice all squeaky. "I'm just trying to figure out what this person, who my sister happens to travel with, is like! For all I know she could be a horrible axe murderer!"

"I don't think she is," I say. "I haven't seen her murder anyone."

"There's not many people who would murder someone else in plain sight," he says. He sounds like he's suffering one of Mum's long-nagging-rants. I glare at him for even using the same voice as he does in that situation.

I decide to change the subject instead. "Craig said you were going to let him draw Elizabeth when you visited next. Can it even stay still long enough to be drawn?"

"No," Jerry admits. "But I thought he might like an action shot of her chasing down something small and furry. Or just being chased away from the house by his mother because she's moulting feathers on the grass or something."

"She'd do that." I laugh at the thought and manage to picture it. "Have you caught anything else?"

"No. But Rosie finished evolving. Mitchel's getting close to it too." He touches the poké balls on his belt as he talks about them. He seems so organised! My poké balls are just slung into my pockets. And sometimes I forget which one I've put them in and begin to panic.

Maybe I should start to organise myself a little better.

But then I'd probably confuse myself.

"I do have something new on my team though," he says after some thought. "But I'm not sure if she'd work out well. I've already got others like her anyway."

"It's not like Kiki, is it?" I ask him and feel Kiki's poké ball somehow glare at me. That proves how evil a creature it is! Only something that truly came from the deepest depths of hell could glare at me through a poké ball.

Jerry seems clueless to my epiphany, busy wiping splodges of dirt off his jeans. "Do you mean like her as in plant-like, or just plain glary and antisocial?"

I shrug. "Both?"

"Then no," he says with a laugh. "So you went to the museum here then? Do they still have that thing with the robot archeops feasting on a few random lumps of pokémon meat?" He makes little puppet hands to illustrate it all.

"Yeah. That was there when we last went there, wasn't it?"

"Yup." He looks over to the big building and smiles. "That was ages ago now. I was about twelve and you were what? Six, maybe?"

"Seven," I correct him and frown at him for his mistake. He smiles and pats my head. I consider biting his hand off.

"So you're friend's around here then?" he asks as we leave the town and head towards Pinwheel Forest.

"Over that way," I say and point in the direction. "If you look really hard, you can see her pignite. And her sawk."

"She has a sawk?" He seems interested by that for some odd reason. When I nod, he grunts a funny little sound and says, "Punch is a throh."

Oh yeah, now I remember Punch! Jerry used to dress it up in scary costumes around Halloween and have it leap out of everywhere to scare me.

Jerk.

I still need revenge for that, somehow!

Once we're close enough, I cup my hands around my mouth and scream Ali's name. She glances over and waves before jogging towards us. I can hear her pignite snort from a distance and then suddenly it starts running towards us, full speed. I shriek and hide behind Jerry, intent on not getting run over by a sprinting fire pig.

Thankfully Ali manages to stop it in time. She smiles at me and tells her pokémon to calm down before she looks at Jerry and sizes him up.

"So you're her brother then?" she asks him.

He nods. "You're the travel buddy?"

"That's me!" she declares. "I'm Alison. Call me Ali."

He shakes her hand and goes bright red. "J-Jeremy. Jerry, I mean."

I smirk and sneak up to Ali's side. "He likes you!" I whisper to her. She laughs as Jerry looks like he wants to kill me. I smile at him and maintain innocence before turning back to Ali. "Ali-ii, do you want to come to Sinnoh with us?"

She looks stunned. "Sinnoh? You're going there? Both of you?"

"Yeah!" I say, nodding excitedly. "I need to get a badge from there and Jerry's taking me! And you said that you wanted to go to Sinnoh originally, so I thought you'd want to come with us!"

She still doesn't look sure. She looks over at Jerry and he just shrugs.

"She's been going on and on about how she wants you to come with us. If you know my sister, you'll know what she's like when she gets an idea in her head."

I pull a face at him. "What does that mean?"

He smiles at me. "Nothing, Squirt."

I glare at him, but finally roll my eyes and turn back to Ali. "So will you come? _Please?_ I don't want to be stuck with Jerry all the time! He smells and you're way cooler!"

She laughs. "I'm not sure. I mean, I don't want to intrude…" She looks away and pulls at the ends of her hair.

Jerry's going bright red again. "You wouldn't be intruding! I mean, that's if you come, which you don't need to if you don't want to."

Ali slides her hands into her pockets, glances back at her pokémon and then back to Jerry. "So what would you say if I came?"

He snorts. "Do you want me to make the obvious joke?"

She laughs. He laughs. I feel like I've missed something really funny.

Jerry starts scratching the back of his head. It makes his curls bounce up and down. "Well, urm. I-I mean, my sister would like it if you came with us. And you don't want to disappoint her, do you?"

I realise I'm being used as the crucial leverage here. So I try to use my best puppy-face. "Please Ali? Come to Sinnoh? We'll have fun and you can have your gym battle here first too!" She can't resist the guilt trip! It's impossible for her to!

She looks between us both, drops her head and sighs. "Give me a day to think it over, alright guys?"

"Does that mean you'll come?" I ask her, puppy-face in full motion. She can't overlook this!

She smiles and puts a hand on my shoulder. "It means I'll think about it. I'd need to get the boat fare together and let my family know I'm leaving the country and everything like that. It's not something I can do on a whim. I'll let you know tomorrow, alright?"

"But-" I start to protest, but Jerry pokes me in the head.

"Let her decide, Squirt. If you pressure her about it, she might say no."

Just hearing that alone is enough to make me gasp and give her a horrified look. She just smiles and shrugs at me. She can't say no! It's like impossible for her to say no to childish guilt trips! I need a new technique to get people to do stuff. Maybe like an actual puppy. Or even better, a kitten. Then it can evolve into an awesome killer cat! Though that would leave me without anything to guilt-trip people with.

"I'll let you know tomorrow," she says again, drawing me back to reality. There's hope she'll agree yet! "In the meantime, I've got to train my pokémon. I'll see you later tonight or something, so you spend the day with your brother." She looks at him and points to me with her thumb. "She talks about you a lot."

"I do _not!"_ I shout, unable to believe she would say that.

"You _so_ do," she says, laughing. "She mentions you every so often, about how good a trainer you are or whatnot. She really looks up to you."

"I don't!" I say. "And I only look up to him because he's tall!"

They're both laughing. I don't like it. They should be laughing because of something I said in a good way! Not like this!

There's only one solution; divert the attention.

"Jerry has naughty pictures on his phone!"

Jerry shuts up instantly and goes purple in the face. Ali sees his reaction and has to lean on her pokémon to stop her falling over from laughing. All the while, I grin to myself.

Success!

**-O-O-O-**

The next day, Jerry still doesn't look all that happy when I tell him what happened with the dead pokémon on the beach.

I know he's lying when he says he believes me.

But I don't know why!

He's got my camera in his hands and he's looking at it again. "Craig's good at editing pictures on his computer, isn't he?"

"Yeah," I say as I remember some of the things he's done. "Why?"

He shrugs. "Just wondering if it's possible to make something like this."

"He didn't make that up!" I say as I snatch it back. He's come into mine and Ali's room and accusing me of things like that! It's like being back home with him again, but worse! "It's _real!_ It happened! Why would Mum and Dad believe it if it was a lie?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. It just seems unlikely. That you actually found a mythical pokémon like that."

"We did! Why else would they have moved away so quickly? Why did Craig and his mum vanish overnight?"

Jerk.

He's making me cry again.

"I don't know," he admits. "But is the phione thing all? Is there something else you didn't tell our parents? Something you didn't want to tell them?"

"No!"

"Are you sure?"

He steps towards me and I shove him away. "You're a jerk!" I shout at him. "I didn't make this up! I told them _everything_ that happened! I don't want to go to Sinnoh with you if you don't believe me!"

He sighs. "I'm not saying I don't believe you. I'm just saying it's hard to believe."

"It happened!" I shout. I stomp my foot for good measure and glare at him. "You're a jerk! You're just upset you didn't see the dead thing! Get out of my room!"

He snorts and leans against the wall. "I'm not jealous of anything. If anything I'm pissed that you've been so stupid and ruined our parents' lives."

I feel my mouth drop open and lose all track of words. It's like the moment's frozen in time forever and I'm just left staring at his jerky, stupid head. He looks like he's realises he's said something wrong, but I kick him in the shin and run crying out of the pokémon centre.

I don't want to be anywhere near him.

How can he say that it's all my fault? It's _not!_ They chose to move away and change everything! I don't get why he's saying it!

I run out of the city in order to be away from him. I know that boats leave for Sinnoh from Castelia. I'll go there and get a boat without him! All I need to do is go through Pinwheel Forest and Kiki can help me do that.

I sniff, wipe my eyes with my sleeves and let Kiki out of its ball. It rattles about something and tries to poke me when it sees I'm upset.

"My brother's a jerk," I tell it. It clucks something I decide is it agreeing with me. "We're going to go to Castelia and take a boat to Sinnoh. So we need to go through the forest."

Kiki says something and points to my bag. I shrug and realise it is just a little bit lighter.

Well, I do have some clothes that happen to be in the wash back in my room. And my other stuff in the bathroom. But that doesn't matter because I can just buy all that stuff again, as long as I don't have to go anywhere near my stupid brother again.

"Let's go," I tell my pokémon. My phone rings and I see Jerry trying to call me. I glare at it, ignore the call and then just switch it off. Jerk. He's not allowed to talk to me. Kiki rattles something as I throw my phone into my bag. I match the glare it gives me with equal venom.

"So what if it's a stupid idea? I want to get away from him. There's nowhere else I can get to so I can get a boat!" I point at the forest and try to see anything beyond it. "We need to get through there. So unless you learn how to fly, we have to walk through there."

It grunts to itself but follows me regardless. I manage to smile at a few of the trainers Ali and I met that hang out near the forest. They mostly train fighters, so Ali likes them. Then there's a few that like that bugs from in the forest. They're all alright and mostly all trying to train enough to beat Lenora. It makes me realise that she must be really strong and that I should probably train a lot to face her eventually.

I try to play it all out in my head. I think I need a fighter to beat her easily. That means I'll need to catch and train one. I'll do it when I'm in Sinnoh. That will be easier. I don't want to train anything on the boat. It might try to run and fall over the side. Or just push me overboard instead.

I watch the sky gradually get covered over by trees. Kiki seems torn between liking it and hating it at the same time. I think it's because it's a plant from the desert. That makes the most sense.

I see little things climb through the trees the closer we get. A few big birds call from atop the trees and little yellow squirrels leap from tree to tree, gliding across the big long distances.

There are two big dirt tracks in the forest, almost like something heavy's driven through it. Otherwise the trees and bushes seem to swallow everything and hide what lies beyond under their leafy covers. I see a big snake slither underneath one bush and want to chase and catch it. Kiki warbles something and I gather it wouldn't be a good idea.

Still, it'd be cool to have a snake pokémon. There was the shed skin of one of them in the museum in Nuvema. It was bigger than me!

Even on the path, there are a few dead trees and logs that have fallen over. Moss and plants grow over the top of them, with little worms and the occasional pokémon slithering over them. I'm tempted to sit down and rest on one, but I remember doing that before and finding an _army_ of woodlice hidden underneath the log. It's enough to make me decide that I'll keep walking, at least for now.

Kiki grumbles and moves me away from a little cluster of seeds on the floor. I want to know why, but then I look back, see a big blue sawk step on them and suddenly get dragged into the undergrowth.

I shudder. That could have been me! I don't know whether Kiki was being nice or not, but it still saved my life!

At the cost of that random sawk's.

Ali!

I remember her from the pokémon alone and switch my phone back on. I have to wander around with it held in the sky until I finally get signal and find I've got over twenty missed calls from Jerry and about five from Ali. I debate hitting the button to call her back as I see that I was meant to meet her about twenty minutes ago.

Finally I do and she picks up on about the third ring.

"Please tell me that you're just running late and you haven't done a Sean on me," she says.

I turn bright red and try to hide, even though she's nowhere near me. "I… I had a fight with Jerry."

"And you've ran away." She doesn't sound angry. In fact, she sounds like she understands. But even so, my stomach bubbles with uncertainty.

"Yeah," I say slowly. I don't want to say the wrong thing – it sounds like one little word might cause her to shout at me. "He was a jerk and I wanted to get away."

"Alright. You know where you are? I can come meet you."

"I'm in the Pinwheel Forest," I say. I look up and try to see where I am but realise that in the process of trying to get signal, I've become lost.

Oh.

Well.

That was smart.

"I'm near a really big tree," I tell her.

She laughs down the phone. "Really? Because a tree in a forest is such a hard thing to find."

"Okay," I say sheepishly. "Well, when I find a sign or something, I'll let you know where I am, okay?"

She sighs. It makes her sound annoyed. "Alright. Don't wander too far. Find something big and obvious, then wait by it. Unless it's an angry pokémon. Then wait away from it."

I hang up the phone.

Then, panic sets in.

Because I'm lost in a forest and I don't know where I am and no one else does and I'm stuck with only a cactus to help me against armies of bugs and flying things and generally nasty pokémon!

I'm so stupid. I should have brought a GPS! Or a map! Or anything!

I attack my pockets and then remember, in clear detail, the sight of my pokédex sat happily on my bed.

_I am such a moron._

I breathe slowly. This isn't as bad as it seems. There's no angry beedrill nearby. No swarms of wurmple or dragons or anything that looks like it wants to eat me.

Though the leavanny in that tree looks hungry.

Do they eat people? I don't know. What if they do? What if it's watching me and planning on eating me?

"We should find something nearby," I tell Kiki. It grunts an agreement and leads me from the hungry-looking leavanny. A serperior slithers along underneath the bushes nearby; behind it another drags the dead body of a blue monkey.

It would be kinda cool if I wasn't terrified out of my mind and afraid that those things are going to eat me too!

We hurry away from the snakes and find ourselves near a big river. There's a huge log that's fallen over the top of it and makes a little bridge across. On my left everything seems normal, but on my right, everything seems really eerie. Like there's nothing there and everything's fled.

I ring Ali and tell her where I am. She tells me to stay put and wait for her.

Even so, I want to know why everything has left that little part of the river. There's got to be something strong there!

The strong thing might come after me if I go there, though. But if I just sit around nearby it, the thing might see me and hunt me down! It's better for me to know what it is, then I should know how I'm meant to avoid it.

"Come on," I tell Kiki. It grunts and tries to stop me from going there. It makes me a little worried that even my pokémon doesn't want to go there.

Then again, Craig's frillish didn't seem too bothered about the dead phione. So it shouldn't be anything like that.

Of course, that could mean this thing is alive.

"I need to see what's there," I say. "That way I'll know how I can avoid it. Otherwise we have to wait here, right nearby it and just waiting to be eaten."

Kiki seems to like that idea even less. It agrees to go down the creepy side of the river, but insists that it goes first. The further in we go, the quieter everything gets. It's almost like someone's slowly turning down the volume of the forest. It's the birds that stop first. Then the bugs. Then even the wind and the leaves seem to have stopped making sound.

The forest is still there. But if I couldn't see it, I wouldn't believe it. Sunlight still streaks through the trees and bathes the river in little streaks of bright light.

Kiki growls at something round a large corner. I can hear water crashing up against something that sounds like rocks. I glance at Kiki and it seems that it really wants to leave this place.

That must mean whatever we have to avoid is right round the corner!

I take a deep breath and choke on it. The smell of something gross hits me and stays in the back of my throat. Kiki just gives me a look like 'I told you so.' I cough as much of the nasty smell out as I can, pull my hoodie up over my nose and make my way a little further round the corner.

I find myself staring into where the river seems to end. It pools in a big lake that's surrounded by big bushes, trees and a number of large grey rocks that come up from below the water's surface. They form a little, natural sort of diving board above the water. There's a little clearing opposite me, where all the plants are brown, withered and dead.

And atop the dead plants is an equally dead pokémon.

Unlike the phione, this one is rotting. I can see little bits of goo underneath its skin and can even make out its bones.

Whatever it was, it was blue too.

But this thing has four legs. Long fur that looks like it was once red hangs loosely from its back and its head. It has a big, blue furry tail that's splashed with little bits of blood.

At least this thing's eyes are closed.

Instead a little centipede crawls out of its mouth and into its exposed chest.

I shudder and hide behind the corner again. Kiki looks at it, then back to me and motions for us to return the way we came.

I can only agree.

That's when I hear Jerry and Ali shouting my name.

"Over here!" I shout back into the forest. I get Kiki to release a load of cotton balls. They float aimlessly in the air until it shoots little needles through them all. The needles and little blasts of air scatter them into the forest and make a little trail back to us.

It takes only a few minutes after that for them to meet me. They both look like they're torn between hugging me or hitting me. Ali looks like she's been crying and Jerry looks really guilty. Beside them is a looming shadow that has two really bright red eyes and a golden zipper-mouth. I think it's Annie – but I last saw her as a shuppet.

Jerry crouches in front of me, puts his hands on my shoulders and tries to smile. He doesn't make it. "I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't have said what I did. I'm just… I guess I'm upset about everything. Mum and Dad randomly moving, telling me everything's changed and that they're having to hide from something… I just don't understand it all. And I thought you knew more and I'm just lashing out while I'm trying to understand it all."

"Okay," I say slowly. I know he's not lying, but I'm still upset about what he said. Though a pressing matter takes charge in my mind. "How'd you find me?"

"I told him you were in here," Ali says. She folds her arms and looks cross. "After everything with Sean, I didn't want to put someone else through it."

I pull at the already frayed ends of my hoodie. "Sorry," I mumble at the floor. "But I had Kiki with me! And I found something really weird!"

"In here?" Ali looks around at the forest. "I hope it's not human. They're always finding dead prostitutes in here."

"Not as many as in the marshes in Sinnoh," Jerry tells her. "Especially since they realised feraligatr sometimes hunt there."

"It's not human," I tell them both. I wave them towards the dead thing, even as Kiki tries to stop me. Even Annie hangs back, silently looming behind us all. "It's that!" I declare and point at the thing. I look back at them both, grinning and expecting looks of intrigue.

Instead they look exactly as shocked and afraid as Mum did when I showed her the dead phione.

"Holy shit," Jerry says.

"Foongus," says Ali.

"I don't get it," I say as I look back at the thing. "What is it?"

"I'm spending my time hoping it's not something," Jerry whispers. He inches closer, but then Annie suddenly appears in front of him and wails something I don't understand. He backs away, paler than I've ever seen him and swears again. "I guess I believe you about your phione now."

"Why?" I ask him. What's changed to make him believe me suddenly?

"That's… that's a keldeo, isn't it?" Ali asks. She looks at Jerry for answers. He bits his lip and nods just slightly. She blanches and falls back a step. "Oh foongus. This is not good."

"Why?" I ask them. "What is it?"

"Keldeo," Jerry says. "Like the phione you found, but different. Oh shit, we need to leave here, now!"

He's scared. I don't understand why. I need to know why he's scared!

"There's an unwritten rule amongst trainers," Jerry says as he stands behind me and guides me away from the thing. Kiki doesn't stop him – in fact, it mostly helps him! "If you find anything like this, don't touch it, run the hell away and pretend you never saw it."

"Why?" I feel like a broken record, keep asking the same question.

"Everything that happened here a while ago, with the dragons. You remember that, right?" He looks down at me and I nod, still confused. He glances back up and speaks even as he keeps walking me away. "All five of them that were in contact with the three dragons; Cheren, Bianca, N, Hilbert and Hilda. They vanished a while ago. No one's seen them since."

"Similar things happened in the other countries too," Ali says. She looks just as nervous as Jerry. "Everyone that's ever come into contact with a myth like that has vanished from sight. Maybe there's a good explanation. Maybe there's not. All most trainers know is that if you find something like that and brag about it, you disappear."

"But, that's impossible!" I say to them both. "People would notice something like that."

"They didn't notice Craig vanish," Jerry says.

Oh.

Oh crap.

Another dead thing. Another dead myth.

That I've found.

"What's going to happen now?" I look up at them both. They share a silent conversation that I don't understand in the slightest.

Jerry shrugs. "We leave. We pretend we were never here and we get out of the country as quickly as we can." He looks over at Ali and manages a small laugh. "Looks like you're coming to Sinnoh with us now then, huh?"

"I suppose so," she says. She pulls her ponytail loose and redoes it. "Not like I've got much choice now, huh? Foongus, I'll have to cancel my gym battle too." She drops her head and pulls on the straps of her backpack nervously. "Oh man. This is bad. Are you sure we should all go to Sinnoh together?"

Jerry's flicking through his pokédex as he's walking. "Do you want to risk being on your own after seeing that?"

Her wince says it all. I start to really worry when I see just how scared they both are.

I try to look back at the dead thing and understand why it's worrying everyone so much. Jerry and Kiki both stop me and force me to keep walking. When we're back near the first part of the river I found, Annie cackles, circles around us all and the world vanishes into nothing but darkness.

I scream, but no sound comes out my mouth. My eyes feel like they're shut even though they're wide open. I can't see anything in front of my face, yet at the same time, I can see things moving around in the distance, almost like they're watching me.

Then I'm sat in my room in the pokémon centre again. Everything in the weird place takes less than a second, with Jerry and Ali none the wiser to everything that I saw.

It's strange, but I don't want to cause any more trouble by bringing it up. I remain quiet and keep the thoughts and memories of the place to myself.

"Why didn't anyone ever tell me about those things?" I ask Jerry. He grunts and looks over at me, even though his head is nearly buried in his backpack. "The dead pokémon. Mum and Dad never told me anything about avoiding them."

"Yes they did," he says and buries his head again.

Really? I don't remember anything like that. "No they didn't. If they did, I wouldn't have gotten into this trouble."

He sighs and looks at me again. "They did and you did. Why do you think they were always telling us never to touch anything that was dead? All those lessons; avoid these places, stick away from this, that and the other, look out for these signs – they were all them warning us about this."

"But why didn't they _say_ anything about it?"

He shrugs. "It's pretty much a once in a lifetime thing to even get a glimpse of a pokémon like that. They thought by being vague it would help us better, I guess. I got a better explanation when I left to be a trainer… I guess it was too late with you."

I say nothing and stare at the floor. I hear Annie whisper something about me and ignore it. Why couldn't my parents have said something properly? Then I wouldn't have touched that stupid dead phione and wouldn't have ended up here.

But the dead horse is something else entirely. I didn't touch that. None of us did.

And yet we're still doing the same sort of thing to get away from it.

I need to find out more about this all. But Jerry's not going to tell me. I'll have to figure it out on my own.

Ali sighs as she flops down on her bed. She looks at Jerry, then at me and points her hairbrush accusingly at us. "Something else has gone on. You've said as much. Are you going to tell me what's happening, or are you just going to leave me in the dark towards whatever's hunting you."

"Nothing's hunting us," Jerry says quickly as he sees my eyes widen. "It's… a long story."

She slaps her brush into her free hand. "Make it quick."

He shrugs and stops packing. "Long story short, she found a dead phione on the beach in near Accumula," he says, pointing at me. I try to hide away as Ali looks at me, eyebrows raised. "Her and her friend found it. That night, her friend and his mother disappeared. My parents said their pokémon were attacked. Her friend's house was ransacked – and this is a woman that cleans _everything_. They were gone, our pokémon had been shot by tranquilisers. So my parents made the choice to flee before they came after them again."

Ali's mouth flops a little, like she's trying to think of something to say. She looks at me and asks, "Did you really see a phione?"

I nod and hand her my camera with the picture. She holds it in one hand, bites the fingernails on her other. "Foongus," she whispers as she hands me back the camera. "How's this even possible? Phione are… Sinnoh pokémon, I think?"

"Sinnoh," Jerry says with a nod. "Don't know why it's here. Don't care. All I know is that it's started this, now we've found a dead keldeo."

I flick through my camera and see pictures of happier times. Random trips with my friends into the zoo or to the beach, days out with my parents and photos left over from my birthday.

There's one where Kiki is covered in cake and pink icing. I see it and manage only the barest of smiles. I'd normally laugh, but everything now is just… too sad.

"Are they linked?" I ask them both. "They're both dead. And they're both mythological pokémon. I know what it says about keldeo and the other protectors here in Unova, but nothing about how they link together."

"Don't know," Jerry says and fights to fit a pair of boots into his bag. "Maybe. We'll find out when we're safe in Sinnoh."

"_If_ we're safe," Ali corrects. "What if someone was watching us?"

Jerry looks up at his banette. It says something, voice like whispers in the wind.

"There wasn't anyone," he translates. "But I'm not taking chances." He stands up, slings his backpack onto his shoulders and recalls his pokémon. "There's a train that can take us to the docks in Castelia. From there we can catch a boat to Sinnoh. I'm ready when you both are."

He says it with such finality that I find myself packing up my stuff into a bag without any thought towards anything else.

**-O-O-O-**

It takes us nearly two hours to get from Nacrene into Castelia.

The next twenty minutes are spent with us trying to get through all the people behind desks who want clearance for us to leave the country with native pokémon. Jerry shows them his trainer badges and gets through; Ali does the same. When it gets to me, they spend a while trying to make sure the papers I've showed them are real before telling me most of the same things Lenora did.

Ten minutes after that, we get on our boat and Unova starts to slowly vanish into the distance.

I sigh as I watch the huge towers of brick, glass and stone creep away from me. Kiki tutters by my side, death grip on the railing I lean my chin on. It looks at the water below with some trepidation, but keeps glancing at me and frowning.

"Oh right," I say as I look at it. "You can't swim, can you?"

It gives me a look that clearly says, 'Duh.' I move away from the railing and sit on one of the benches in the middle of the deck. Kiki looks a lot more relaxed here than by the edge. I can still see Unova slowly crawl away, so I guess it's a good thing still.

I know Ali's below deck somewhere. I think she's trying to battle trainers or something. All I know for sure is that she said she needs some time alone to try and figure everything out. She didn't seem angry, but more upset about everything. Jerry told her it was fine, then he went to ring our parents to let them know everything that's happening.

I'm slightly worried he's going to try and blame me for everything. But if he hadn't upset me, I'd never have run into the forest in the first place!

Kiki gives me a flat look, almost like it can read my mind. I huff and drop my chin into my hands. I know I wanted to leave Unova and head to Sinnoh, but I wanted to do it in a nice way!

This way sucks.

"Hey," Jerry says quietly from behind me. He sits down next to me and tries to smile. "You mind me sitting here?"

"Not like I can stop you," I growl. "I can't push your fat butt off the seat."

I flinch, expecting a needle from Kiki. Instead it looks at me, seems to smile and glares at Jerry for a change. I smile to myself and take solace in the fact that at least my pokémon can be nice sometimes.

"Maybe," he says and then goes quiet. He just watches Castelia disappear with me and stays completely silent, like I'm going to suddenly tell him it's all my fault or something.

So naturally, I can't believe my ears when I hear him say, "I'm sorry."

"Huh?" I grunt at him, suspicion floating in my brain. He's planning something. He's got to be. He _never_ apologises to me!

"I said I'm sorry," he says and actually sounds like he means it.

Weird.

"I shouldn't have said what I did earlier. If I hadn't, maybe you wouldn't have found that… well, you know." He starts trying to pull out a big hair from a mole on his arm. "I was a jerk."

"You were," I tell him. Kiki says as much too. "But, maybe I shouldn't have run off into the forest," I admit. I swing my legs underneath my seat and stare at the sky instead of him. "It was all quiet there and I could have left it, but I wanted to find out just why everything in the forest was so quiet."

"I can't blame you," he says. "Hell, I'd do the same."

"Really?"

"Really." He sighs, stretches and clicks his fingers. I watch him out of the corner of my eye for some sort of trick. When it seems like there isn't one coming, I relax. Just a little bit. "Mum and Dad aren't all that bothered about us going to Sinnoh," he says.

"That's weird. I thought they would have been." Neither of them sounded happy on the phone to me. Maybe it's just because they know Jerry's with me now. I glare at him for getting to be their favourite like that.

"I didn't tell them about the… you know what," he says. He looks away from me and starts picking dirt from his fingernails. "Just in case, you know, there's something up with the phones."

"Oh." There's nothing more I can say to that, not without letting people around us know about everything. I smile when I see that Kiki's still glaring at Jerry, like it blames him entirely. "How did they tell you about everything then?"

He laughs and looks at me. "Remember when we were little and we had that little code we used to write to each other in?"

It takes me a moment, but when I do remember I nod. "They never understood what we wrote. It was funny."

"Turns out they understand it," he says and nods as my mouth drops open. "Apparently they didn't want to ruin our illusion of safety by letting us know they knew."

"But… but…" I'm lost for words. "That's _cheating!"_

"I suppose." He sighs and looks back at his hands again. "But it meant they could tell me what was happening without anyone else knowing. Though they got a few things of our code wrong."

"Good," I declare haughtily. Serves them right for stealing it!

"Anyway," Jerry says as he swings his arms and stands back up. "I just came to let you know I was sorry about how much of an ass I was." He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a little red and white poké ball. "And also to give this to you."

He drops it into my lap. It feels foreign and heavy and just plain weird.

Kiki glares at it like it's a new-born child stealing everyone's attention. I pick the poké ball up and turn it over in my hands, half expecting it to be a trick one that explodes into a cloud of dust.

"I told you that I had a new pokémon that wasn't really working with my team," Jerry says and points at the ball. "I started training her, so she knows a few things, but I think she can probably help you more than me."

I don't know what to say. I feel my mouth try to work as I pass the ball over in my hands. Finally words return to my tongue. "Is it a liepard?"

He laughs. "Dad told me about all of that. I'm afraid not. Though it's close."

Close to an awesome stalky-cat is good enough! I grin as I stand up, flick the switch on the poké ball and throw it open.

I'm more excited than ever as I watch the white energy form a shape. It looks kinda small and… fat. And not at all cat-like.

In fact, it looks like a bird.

The white energy crackles away and leaves me staring at a little bird with a long pink neck, feet and face, black feathers and beak and little red eyes.

And it looks like its wearing a skull.

As a diaper.

It looks up at me, red eyes wide. I stare down at it, wondering just what the hell it happens to be.

Then it screeches, takes to the sky and attacks my hair!

"Get it out!" I scream as I flail like a lunatic. Jerry tries to pry it from my hair, but he only makes my hair tangle around the thing and _hurt_ as he pulls it with the bird! Kiki looks like it's trying to help and not laugh at the same time, though when I yelp in pain it just decides to smack the bird out of my hair and across the deck.

"Thanks," I breathe as my head finally stops being scratched by tiny claws.

"You're welcome," Jerry says.

I glare at him. "Not you. Kiki. Kiki got the evil-bird-thing out of my hair." I point at it wildly. It takes to the sky again, tweets and tries to dive bomb my hair again. I shriek and throw my hands over my hair. Kiki spits a single seed that smacks into it and _explodes_ in the bird's face!

The bird drops to the floor and struggles to get back to its feet again. I glare at it, recall it and try to smooth my hair back into something like normality.

"I don't like it," I tell Jerry. "It's evil. And nothing like a liepard!"

"It's a vullaby," he says. He pushes the poké ball back to me as I try to hand it to him. "And she's a pokémon of darkness, like a liepard. Evil, plotting and diabolical masterminds, but also really tough in a fight and hard to take down."

It _does_ sound pretty cool when he puts it like that. I stare at the poké ball and contemplate having it on my team.

Then I realise that's going to involve having that pull out my hair and Kiki needle me whenever I curse the stupid bird.

"I just figured, since you haven't caught a pokémon yet, you wouldn't mind another one," Jerry tells me. He holds out his hand and says, "Though I can always take her back and train her if you can't."

I hiss, protect the poké ball with my body and glare at him. How _dare_ he think I need him to train a pokémon for me! Jerk.

"I'll train it," I tell him. He smiles and takes his hand back. "You'll see. I'll train it and it'll be stronger than your stupid dodrio!"

"If you want," he says, holds his hands up in surrender and then slips them into his pockets. "I haven't given her a name yet, so that's up to you. But you don't need to think of one just yet."

I roll the ball in my hands and think about it. "I'll call it Mandy," I tell him.

"Mandy?" he asks. "Is this after that really evil girl on the cartoon with the grim reaper? Because that's an awesome cartoon… though I don't remember you watching it."

I shake my head at him. "Not after the cartoon. There was a girl in my class called Mandy. She was mean and used to pull my hair all the time."

"Oh," Jerry says. He raises an eyebrow. "Did she? What happened with her?"

"I kicked her butt," I proclaim. Jerry laughs and Kiki growls at me. I dart closer to the boat's edge and watch it reconsider attacking me. Victorious for now, I poke my tongue out at the pokémon. "She was mean to me because I had pokémon and she didn't. Then she tried to start a fight, so I beat her up."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Jerry sighs. He leans his elbows on the railing and stares out at the sea as it sloshes out underneath the boat. "Try not to cause any trouble while we're in Sinnoh, alright?"

"I'll try," I say. "Though you get in as much trouble as me."

He snorts. "I don't beat up people because they beat me in a pokémon battle."

I blush and try to make myself a little bit smaller. "I didn't know you knew about that."

"I know everything," he says, a big grin on his face. "So don't lose too many battles, alright Squirt?"

I think about becoming an awesome trainer. Then I remember that my pokémon compose of an angry cactus and now a devilish vulture.

"I need a new pokémon to make sure I don't," I say in realisation.

"Good to see you're learning," Jerry says and pats me on the head. "Any ideas what yet?"

I shrug. "Something normal?"

He laughs and starts to walk off. "You're too weird to get anything normal."

I watch him walk away and try to think of a good enough insult. Someone on the deck above waves their watch in the light and it reflects straight into my eyes. I hiss, scrunch them shut and try to rub the bright green spots out of my eyes.

When I open them again, I see six girls stood in front of me. They're like the little girl from before in Accumula. In fact, they're _exactly_ like her and exactly like each other!

They all smile, extend two skipping ropes between two of them and twirl them as the other four play jump rope.

No one seems to see them but me.

Then as one, they start to sing.

"_Blood kills blood; a murder most foul, an act that tips the reaper's scale~"_

The stupid watch flashes sunlight in my eyes again. I blink out the spots again and find that the girls have all vanished from sight. Jerry looks back at me, smiles and carries on walking back inside the boat.

I glance at Kiki and wonder if it saw the creepy girls too. If it did, it's not saying anything.

I shudder and try to catch up with Jerry. As I do, I can't help but agree with him;

No one normal would see anything as weird as that.


	6. In the Coldest Plains, Fires Are Forged

_Dear Diary,_

_I seek knowledge. I cannot garner enough here – the books are too incompetent and too few to learn anything from._

_I need to gather knowledge from elsewhere._

…

_I need to escape._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|In the Coldest Plains, Fires Are Forged|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

Sinnoh – a land split by mountains that are supposed to reach the throne of the gods. One of the coldest countries on one side of the mountains, yet on the other tropical weathers are the norm – thanks to the large, active volcano that entire villages are built around.

It was only a few years ago that it was torn apart by warring nations of trainers and normal people. It's still recovering from all the disaster that started with one man's greed and ended completely with equal parts greed and determination.

My first impressions?

It's pretty.

Snowflakes drift down around me, swirl around the boat and dart off towards land. One of the boat's cleaners sweeps up hastily after all the fallen snow, but as quickly as he clears the deck of it, snow lands and covers everything again. I stand there watching him, smiling as each time he passes I look just a little bit more like a living snowman.

I run my fingers through my hair and feel all the frayed ends and chewed up strands. I frown and blow it away from my face, silently cursing my brother and the evil creatures he donates to me under the pretence of goodwill.

Mandy has a habit of attacking my hair and deciding it's a new nest. I've lost a lot of hair thanks to the stupid bird and get a little bit more depressed each time I see more of my hair staring back at me from my hairbrush. I've tried getting it to attack Jerry instead, just because it's not fair for me to keep suffering, but the stupid bird seems to think that only my hair is good enough for a nest.

At least in the two weeks the boat's taken to get to Sinnoh I've mostly drilled that habit out of it. Mostly because I've been wearing a hardhat every time I've let it out. The workmen on the ship seemed so confused when I asked them for one, but as soon as they saw what I was dealing with they decided to be nice and let me borrow it until we get to Sinnoh.

It is one problem with the silly bird solved. I still have to tie a bit of string to my wrist and its leg to stop it from flying away, never to be seen again. I feel like I've got the world's worst balloon; one that shrieks and attacks random by passers rather than inspiring jealousy and amusement.

I stretch out my hands and watch the snow start to cover my gloves. Purple becomes covered in white quickly and in less than a minute, it's like I don't actually have a pair of hands, just mounds of snow at the bottom of my arms. I'm that enthralled by the snow that I forget I'm actually standing outside in cold temperatures, both pokémon – who happen to feel the cold a lot – with me.

At least until Mandy shrieks in my ear and starts pecking my hat. I yelp, jump and try to glare at it all at once. I rue the day I let Jerry help me teach it to sit on my shoulder. It shuffles up and down my shoulder, bobs its head up and down and then starts pecking my hat again. I try to wave it away but as soon as my ears are exposed it tries to go for those too.

Kiki growls and deters it with a well-aimed needle. Then it turns the acid-glare on me for making it stand outside in the cold too. I huff, watch my breath fog into the air and then be mercilessly murdered by falling snowflakes before giving in and retreating back into the warmth. Hot air swarms at me all of a sudden, makes me feel far too hot and like I've somehow changed countries in the span of a footstep.

At the sound of the door opening, Ali turns around to see who it is and greets me with a wave. In that moment, her sawk picks her up, spins her around by her ankles and then drops her on her back. She shrieks, leaps to her feet and tries to punch it in the face. It catches her fist and she stumbles, hops then she spins and kicks it in the shoulder. It grunts, picks her up by arm and leg and then throws her away again.

I watch them fight for a good few minutes, enthralled. Jerry pats an empty wooden box next to him for me to sit down on. It's like a routine that we've adopted throughout the trip, where we come downstairs to the cargo hold and let Ali spar with her pokémon. Jerry and I remain on the side lines, talking about random things and occasionally training our smaller pokémon. Sometimes I sit here with a book and read whilst Jerry tries to join in, but then he gets his butt kicked within a few seconds.

"They've been doing this for a while," Jerry tells me. Ali screams as she's flung off her feet again, then leaps back up and tackles her pokémon. It falls back a step, picks her up and then drops her unceremoniously on the floor again. "I'm amazed she can take this much punishment," he says.

I nod silently. It's been every day for two weeks. I think if it wasn't for the safety mats, Ali would have lots of broken bones by now. Instead she only has loads of bruises. She showed me a few of them and biggest one is larger than my hand! Somehow Ali manages to carry on without ever complaining about how much they hurt. She says it's something to do with being used to fighters.

Personally, I think it's just because she's _weird._

Kiki's stood next to my crate, watching Ali in silent amusement. Every so often I see it look at me, almost like it wants to try the same thing. Then its gaze drifts to Mandy on my shoulder, its face twists in something like a grimace and it looks away again. I shrug, displace Mandy and have to listen to it complain in my ear again. Kiki growls at it, so Mandy decides to flap around it, darting into Kiki's face and hovering just out of reach.

I sigh and just let them play, or try to murder each other. I tried to recall them when they were doing it only once before and when I let them back out again, they went at each other with more ferocity than before.

"At least she's doing that in here now," I say to Jerry as I pull the threads from my sleeves. "She tried doing this before, back in Nuvema. She got winded." And of course, there was the first day on the boat, where she tried doing this on the deck and Cap nearly threw her overboard. "I think you should try this with your pokémon though."

He snorts then gives me a flat look. "You saw how quickly they beat me. And my pokémon would do exactly the same."

"True," I agree. "I can't do this with mine though. Kiki's too prickly and I could just sit on Mandy and squash it."

At that moment, Mandy's face drops down into my vision. I scream as it flies around, squawking something that sounds like a laugh. I glare up at it, wonder just how in the world it managed to sit on my hat without me noticing and decide that it is truly, unrepentantly evil.

Jerry smirks and pats my shoulder. "That's probably a good thing. It'd be kind of worrying to see my kid sister trying to win a bare-knuckled fight with a pokémon."

I roll my eyes at him and mutter things under my breath. As happy as I was to see him, now I'm really starting to realise how protective he is. He makes sure there's someone with me if I'm wandering about on the boat and asks loads of questions about where I'm going and what I'm doing. He's worse than Dad! Sure I may have come across two dead mythical pokémon, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to somehow walk outside and get hit by a meteor or something!

I say nothing and instead decide to watch Kiki and Mandy fight, yet again. Mandy seems to have the habit of hovering near someone, so that when Kiki fires, Mandy dives out of the way and the needles hit someone else. It's happened several times to random trainers and made me have to try to battle them for whatever reason they dream up.

I sigh and tug on Mandy's leash. It yanks her back towards me, screeching and fluttering around like a lunatic. It flaps wildly, puffs up and then soars high above me. I feel the leash go slack and then suddenly, her face is in mine again, randomly dropping down from atop my hat.

I cross my eyes to glare at her. Instead it makes my vision swim and my head go all funny. I groan and rub my eyes as I moan at my brother, "Why couldn't you give me a _nice _pokémon? Like a liepard? Or an eelektross? Or a ninja-bug?"

I don't even have to look at him to know he's rubbing his forehead as he sighs. I can even picture the frown lines that crop up when he does so. "Accelgor," he corrects.

"Yeah that."

He sighs again, the one which I know he accompanies with rubbing his left shoulder. I look over at him and sure enough, he's doing exactly that. I bite my cheek to stop myself laughing, but even still, a snort comes out. He raises an eyebrow at me, but says nothing about it.

"Mandy's the only spare pokémon I had on me," he says. He tries to pet it on the head, but Mandy shrieks and tries to nip his finger. He jerks back his hand and gives Mandy a glare that could rival one of Kiki's. "The only way I could have given you something else would have been to go out and catch it. But that might have ended up being too strong for you, or something like that. Would you like to own a rampaging haxorus?"

I get the image of it causing doom and destruction with me sat atop its back.

"Totally," I say.

Jerry sighs again. "I don't think I want to imagine you owning something like that. It's way too powerful and would probably eat you."

I think I'd realise if a big dragon was trying to eat me, thank you. The gaping mouths and slobber dripping over your head might be a slight clue that it's hungry for trainer flesh.

I so want a haxorus now, just to terrify him. I'll name it Sprinkles. No idea why though.

Ali screams and it knocks me from my thoughts. There's a loud crash as she lands on her back on the safety mat, then a big bang and suddenly the mat wheezes as stuffing and air flies out of a large hole on its side.

Ali's laughing and groaning in pain, all at once. The mat shrinks down around her really fast and she's left flailing around as it starts to trap her. Finally she looks up at her sawk and asks, "Help?" It grunts what sounds like a laugh, bends down and picks her up by her ankles. She screams as it dangles her in the air for a moment then suddenly it flips her around and places her down on her feet. She staggers back, looking dizzy. _I_ feel dizzy just having watched it.

She glares at her pokémon and jabs it on the shoulder. It hums something back in response. She rolls her eyes and ignores it in favour of picking up a towel from the floor. "So what's happening?" she asks as she starts dusting herself down, acting as if she hasn't been wrestling a pokémon for the past hour.

I shrug. Nothing's really happening, as per usual. Two weeks of boredom, spaced out with occasional trainer battles and training our pokémon. "It's snowing outside," I offer.

Jerry snorts and flicks me on the side of the head. "It's called _Snow_point for a reason, Squirt."

I shove him. He falls off the crate with a scream and a thud. I grin proudly as he struggles to get back to his feet and both my pokémon smirk at him.

"I can try the gym here at least then," Ali says.. "Should be able to do that without much trouble, unless of course you're planning on finding anymore dead things?" She says it with a smirk, but I still consider hiding away in shame then and there.

"I didn't _try_ to find it!" I defend. Kiki adds a growl for good measure. Mandy's busy fluttering around Jerry and trying to stop him from getting up. Finally it settles down and offers him a wing, almost like it wants to help him up. He blinks at it, confused, then tries to take the wing. Instead Mandy reels back, slaps his hand with it and circles around his head, cawing with laughter.

"It was already dead and decomposing when I found it," I grouse. "If I'd known I'd walk into something so gross, I wouldn't have. My shoes still smell like rotting flesh!"

"That's because your feet smell like that too," Jerry mutters from the floor. Mandy shrieks and spins around him again. My wrist feels like it's being pulled away from me and I realise that Mandy's using it to tie his head to a nearby shelf. I'd be all for it, as long as it meant I wasn't going to be tied up there with him.

"You're right," Ali says to me, sounding understanding. She smiles and then throws her smelly towel at me. I shriek but before it hits me, Kiki snatches it out of the air and tears it to shreds. We all stare at my maractus with wide eyes for a moment before Ali shrugs and pretends like it never happened. "At least that thing was dead and staying dead. It could have been worse. It could have gotten back up and started eating people."

"It wouldn't!" I declare, yet still find my mind drawn to all those zombie films. Except now I'm imagining them with a dead keldeo shambling around in the middle of a group of zombies, randomly groaning neighing sounds.

I shake the thought out of my head before it settles there. "And besides, it can't happen because zombies _aren't real."_

"They are," Jerry says as he finally disentangles himself from Mandy's leash and stands up. "They lurk in graveyards overnight, just waiting for people to come so they can eat them. Why do you think Mum and Dad never let you go through there after dark?"

For a moment I start to believe him. Then logic kicks in and I point my finger at him. "That's not true! They wouldn't let me through there because they found that girl dead in there!"

He looks shocked that I know that. Then he smirks and pats my shoulder. "Yes, but what they didn't tell you was that she died because she was eaten. By _zombies!_" He says it like he belongs in an old horror movie. He even does the wiggly-evil-fingers to go along with it. I snort with laughter and try my best not to fall off the crate and onto Kiki's prickly body.

"She's not falling for it," Ali says. She leans against Cap, who just stands there like it happens to be used to Ali randomly using it as a makeshift wall. She looks at her nails and starts chewing on one as she says, "She's obviously a lot less naïve than you think."

"I suppose," Jerry says. He picks off a part of Mandy's leash from his shoulder and watches it circle him. He looks at me then quickly shifts his attention back to the circling vulture. "It's strange though, considering I remember you when I first left for my journey. Five years old, incredibly naïve and likely to believe anything I told you. I even still see you like that."

"I'm _ten!_" I grouse. "That's double five!"

He smirks like he's about to insult me. I fold my arms and glare at him so he does otherwise.

It's Ali that saves him saying something stupid. She hops up onto the crate next to me, starts swinging her legs and squeezes my shoulder. "I remember being as young and naïve as you once. It seems like ages ago though."

"That's because you're_ old_," I say without thinking. She looks shocked and Jerry looks like I've said the most offensive thing ever. Finally Ali laughs and swats my arm.

"You're lucky you're so young, because otherwise I'd be holding you upside down by your ankles right now."

I smile innocently back at her. "You wouldn't be able to because I'd beat you. Or Kiki would. Mandy would just shriek and cheer for your victory."

"Dodged a bullet there, Squirt," Jerry says. He jumps back up onto the crate and sits on my other side. Mandy starts trilling again and settles atop my hat, watching Ali and Jerry with its beady little eyes. Jerry throws it a cautionary glance then leans forward so he can look past me at Ali. "So what happened with you then?"

She sighs and leans her head back against the wall. Cap stands on the other side of the room to her, still as a statue. I'm convinced that maybe it silently is one. "I was about two weeks into my journey," Ali says as she pulls fluff from her top. "I was in Viridian in Kanto, when this random guy just walked into the middle of the shopping district, let out a typloshion and started setting fire to everything and everyone."

Jerry leans back against the wall too. He pulls at the longest silly hair on his chin – the one that I'm really tempted to yank out when he's not expecting it. "I heard about that," he says. "I was maybe about two months into my own journey. How close to them were you?"

She pulls a face and shrugs. "Close enough to see people burning. Far away enough that I didn't get caught. Muay – one of my tyrogue – threw me over his shoulder and ran for the hills when it started though." She sighs and starts biting her nails again. "You?"

I stare at him expectantly. Him being a trainer is a whole new side to him that he's never really shared with me. All he ever mentions are the good things – not once has he ever told me about something bad that's happened to him, only warned me about bad things that could happen to me.

"It was about a week in," he says, pointedly avoiding looking at me. In fact, he's avoiding looking at Ali too. "It was a little while after everything in Unvoa happened with the dragons, but Plasma were still kicking around in places. They weren't the problem. The problem was the groups of zealots who thought they could bring the dragons back from wherever they went to. With ritual pokémon sacrifices."

Ali stops chewing on her thumb instantly. "What."

I get the mental image of ancient people atop a monument, holding down random pokémon and trying to cut out their still-living hearts. Then of course, they try it with a blitzle, so it shocks them to death then skips off happily away from the temple.

"Exactly, right?" Jerry says. It takes me a moment he's not talking about ritual blitzle sacrifices. "Anyway, they were stealing pokémon off trainers, because since Plasma's goal was to liberate trainer pokémon, apparently only they were useful in the sacrifice. So they stole Elizabeth off me and tried sacrificing her to everything."

Well, this is new. I've never even heard him tell either of my parents about this! He catches me staring, turns bright red and looks away again, staring at a little screw on the wall.

"So I'm there, in a fit of tears about it all, when I realise that it doesn't look like anyone's going to help me." He catches Ali looking at him, his ears go red and he looks like he's trying to take back what he just said. "Well, after that, I followed after them and tried to stop them. But I was one ten year old kid against these fully grown adults. I never really stood much of a chance against them, but then Elizabeth saw them attacking me, so she plucked the eye out of one of the guys and started attacking them all to protect me."

Everyone's silent for a long moment. Then Ali smiles and pats my head. "You've got all this to come, yet."

"Don't say that," Jerry groans. "I don't want to think of my kid sister going through anything like that."

I smile up at him, innocent and plotting at the same time. I want him to think I'll never get in any trouble, then ambush him with all these horrible stories to make him worry himself into insanity.

Ali laughs and rolls her eyes. "It's a fact of life Jeremy." She glances at her nails, seems to think they're sufficiently chewed and smirks at him. "As much as you might not want it to, it's going to happen soon enough. She'll loose this childhood innocence. And then before you know it, she'll have a boyfriend and be doing all sorts."

Jerry looks like he's about to be sick. "She's my _sister!_" he shrieks at her. "I don't need to have that thought in my head! Just… stop talking!" He slams his hands over both his ears and glares at Ali. She laughs at him, while I just sit there on the side lines, rather confused.

I'm confused a lot whenever I'm with them.

**-O-O-O-**

Only recently did Snowpoint become a city. Eighty years ago, it was a fierce tundra that not even the bravest of adventurers wanted to tame. A group of nomadic settlers from further north, in one of the coldest places on the planet found themselves in Sinnoh and travelled until they found Snowpoint. There they started building their lives and lived in peace, up until about fifty years ago, when they discovered the Snowpoint temple.

They also were the first to discover froslass. Long dead and forgotten by time, the froslass had inhabited the temple, for reasons no one knows. What's known is that when they discovered the temple, they angered the froslass and in return, the pokémon massacred most of the town.

It was five years later when a team of strong pokémon trainers and archaeologists investigated the ruins and managed to clear out the deadly pokémon within. Or at least, most of them, for it's said that deep within the bowels of the temple lays a pokémon hidden away for wielding strength enough to blaspheme a god.

I look up at Jerry and Ali both as our boat docks into Snowpoint. Jerry grins, pulls my earmuffs loose and lets them shoot back into my ears. I yelp, rub my wounded head and glare at him.

"You've got a knack for storytelling," he says. "And to think that you call _me_ a geek."

"You are a geek," I tell him. I shiver a little and hide my gloved hands under my coat. I feel a little silly, bunched up in so many clothes that it's hard to walk, yet it's the only way that I'm managing to keep warm. My breath fogs in front of my face and quickly gets destroyed by little snowflakes that claim its life.

I stick out my tongue and try to catch some of the snow on it. Jerry sees me, laughs and then picks up a handful of snow from the railing and shoves it in my face. I shriek, splutter little bits of snow everywhere and just watch as Kiki showers him in needles in retribution.

Then Ali waits until all is calm before she drops a snowball down his back.

"I hate you both," Jerry grumbles as he tries to shake snow from his back. Little bits of it plop out every so often, making him shudder with each one. "So pokémon centre or gym first?"

I shrug. It's not like I need to be in Snowpoint, anyway. The gym I need is on the other end of the country, past a mountain range and who knows what else. I tell them as much and they both shrug and look at each other for answers.

"Gym," Ali decides as she breathes on her gloved hands. "The pokémon centre's going to be all nice and warm and I'm not going to want to leave it."

"You've obviously never been near Iccirus in the winter," Jerry says. He grins at her, even though he's jumping up and down in an attempt to keep warm. "It freezes over completely, you've got snow up to your knees and things like cryogonal floating around even in the town. You remember our trip there, don't you Squirt?"

My nose wrinkles as I try to think about it. "I think so. Didn't Dad break his leg or something when he tried to ski and hit a tree instead?"

He laughs. "That's the one. We went there for Christmas three years ago," he tells Ali. "Since I'm usually only back about that time and our parents only ever have a longer time off work at Christmas, we usually go on holiday somewhere. Mum decided she wanted to take us all skiing there that year."

"Except none of us could ski," I jump in. "So Jerry and I were zooming downhill on little sleds, with Mum and her pokémon racing us."

Jerry chuckles. "Then Dad turned round and said 'We came on this holiday to ski. It would be a waste if none of us did.' Then he went on the ski slope, ended up somehow in the Moor nearby and crashed straight into a tree!"

"Sounds nice," Ali says. She sounds kind of distant and upset about it. Jerry goes to say something with a big grin, so I poke him in his ribs. He yelps, but gets the message, at least.

"It was." He sighs and kicks a clump of snow into the sea. "Who knows if we'll be doing that again anytime soon."

"It's a while until Christmas," I say, shivering from the cold. "But it feels like it here."

"I think this is meant to be spring, here," Ali says. She holds onto the rail, stands on her tiptoes and tries to peer into the city for some sort of sign. "I'm not certain on how Sinnoh matches up with Unova, but I know that when it's summer in Hoenn, it's nearly winter in Kanjo, whilst it's just started spring in Unova."

I shrug and turn to Kiki. It looks positively ridiculous, clad in a human-sized, bright red knitted hat and scarf. It shivers more than me, yet refuses to be called back into its poké ball, unlike Mandy, who took the first opportunity to hide from the cold. I shrug and scratch it a little through its scarf, at least until a needle catches my finger and pulls my glove off.

By the time I get my glove back on again, I'm certain my hand feels like it's about to drop off through the cold. We're halfway off the boat and having to try and navigate a slippery ramp down onto land again. At least there's a railing on each side to stop us from falling into the sea.

Still, Ali nearly manages to. She screams and decides from then on to hold Jerry's hand, so that when she falls, he does to.

And naturally, I make all the little-sister jokes about him holding her hand.

When we're back on land, I have to recall Kiki back into its ball, just because the snow's that deep it's hard to move in. Ali curses and tries to keep herself upright on the little patches of ice, while Jerry gives up and lets out Jim.

The familiar sight of the bright red fur and fire-eyebrows are strangely welcoming.

But I think it's more because Jim's that warm I feel like summer's finally here. And even better – some of the snow and ice around it melts almost instantly. As quickly as we're away from it though, I can see it slowly starting to become ice once more.

One of the snooty men from the boat walks past us; sees us bask in the warmth of the darmanitan and rolls his eyes at us. "Foreigners," he sneers as he carries on walking-

- then slips and falls flat on his face.

Jim hoots with laughter, louder than all of us. Jerry has it lead the way into town, which leaves behind a little trail of melted snow behind us. I look back after a little bit and see that there are people following behind us, deciding to brave the sloshy melted ice rather than the knee-deep snow.

"I'm keeping you out for the entire time we're here," Jerry decides, his teeth chattering. He's bouncing up and down on the spot as Ali tries to figure out where the gym happens to be.

"Nearby," she says, doing the same. "Apparently it's a five minute walk from here."

"Who'd you ask?" I wonder. If it's the same snooty man as before, he might have just given us wrong directions to be a jerk!

Ali points at a big board. "The map."

"Oh," I say and then quickly pretend that it never happened. It takes us just under five minutes to reach the gym, at which point we huddle around one of the heaters inside before moving anywhere else.

Beyond the waiting room, I can see a little into the gym itself. It seems as if there's whole rooms carved out of ice; it glistens with the light and looks really pretty.

Perhaps more importantly, it looks absolutely _freezing_ too.

The woman in the reception sees us and stands up a little behind her desk. "Can I help you?" She doesn't seem happy we're stealing her warmth from her. Then again, even with a heater and a darmanitan keeping us company, we're still kind of cold. How we're meant to ever travel from here down to the other towns and cities is beyond me.

"We'd like to book gym battles," Jerry says back to her. He sucks in a deep breath and moves away from the heater, then gives in to the cold and calls Jim over with him. Like moths to the flame, Ali and I follow after the heat source and practically hug the fiery orang-utan. "Whenever's earliest."

The woman still doesn't seem too happy that we're in here with a massive fiery pokémon. Probably because a lot of the things in the place are made of ice. I want to stay, just in case they all start melting around us. It'd be pretty awesome to see.

"All three of you?" she asks. Her eyebrows are really thin – in fact, they look pencilled on! I'm tempted to smudge them, just to see if they are in fact pen. Only sheer willpower and a resentment to leave Jim's warmth keeps me from doing so.

Jerry looks at me, one eyebrow raised. I just shake my head and tell him I only want to challenge Roark.

"Two of us," he says. He glances back to Ali. "You don't mind me doing this for you, do you?"

"No," she says, smiling. "I'm happy. I don't need to leave the warmth." She smiles, hugs Jim and rubs its head. It hoots in response. "Can I keep him? I promise I'll look after him and not use him solely as a hot water bottle."

Jerry sighs and flicks Jim on the nose. "I've had it with you and your woman-stealing ways." Jim just shouts, raises a fist and punches itself on the chest. Jerry laughs and does the same. Ali rolls her eyes and mutters something about the similarities of men and monkeys.

As Jerry turns back round to the woman and books their gym battles, I consider the merits of getting myself my own fiery pokémon. It would be pretty awesome, I decide. At least then I wouldn't have to worry about building a campfire or cooking my meals all that much. I could just have the pokémon breathe fire on it all and everything would be sorted!

I make my way to the huge poster in the gym, advertising local pokémon in the hope that there's something about fiery pokémon living nearby. Jerry practically screeches at me about not wandering away on my own, despite the fact I'm moving about three steps away from him. He tries to lecture me about everything being dangerous, especially since I'm in another country but then the woman asks him a few more questions and I manage to sneak away from him again.

Seriously, he's worse than Dad!

I go back to the poster after a moment and start to wonder what sort of fiery pokémon I should get. More than that though, I start to imagine a journey where I won't have to let my brother know when I'm simply leaving the room to get some food or even just a pair of gloves.

**-O-O-O-**

I decide the next day to head out and visit Snowpoint temple whilst Ali and Jerry are busy training their pokémon.

Of course, I don't tell my brother where I'm going. He'd only start to worry and insist that he has to come with me, to hold my hand along the way. Honestly, I've never realised before how much he does try to protect me. Now I know, I can't help but get annoyed with it, just a little.

I let Ali know where I'm going and why I don't want to tell Jerry. She seems to understand a little more, but she does tell me that if I don't let her know if I change my plans, or if she doesn't hear from me in a while, she's telling him. It's the best compromise I can make.

The temple sits at the other end of town. It takes me nearly an hour to trudge my way through the snow. When I finally arrive there, I find myself staring up at the massive stone steps. There are only ten of them, but each are up to my waist. They glisten, pure black in the slight sun and each bit of snow that lands on them gently drifts off and onto the floor.

I glance around to make sure no one's watching. I've heard about how they usually have people standing guard, to make sure there's no one that sneaks in to the lower levels. Today, at least, seems to be my lucky day.

I'm sweaty and panting when I finally make it up the stairs.

But I forget all of that when I look inside.

Little bits of dust glisten in the light like glitter sparkles. I find myself looking at what seems to be an old living area, except everything; chairs, tables and even the bed are carved from ice. Light bounces off them and makes them look like the light is trapped within little icy prisons.

I step inside the room and feel like I've entered into a different world. The air feels heavier somehow, like it hasn't been disturbed in an age. Yet I know that's not true, because I can hear someone giving a tour further in.

Curiosity tells me to investigate the bed. I sit on it and find that somehow, it's not cold. It's even… comfortable. I frown, press my hands against it and consider bouncing on it. I get the mental image of it cracking and falling apart under the stress and quickly decide that's probably not a very good idea.

I poke at it and find there's a little bit of ice on the headboard that looks darker. It's so dark it's almost as if someone's frozen the night itself. Before my mind can tell me otherwise, I poke it and watch in both horror and interest as the black ice simply _melts_ at my touch.

It takes a moment for me to realise that what I've seen actually just happened.

Then the reality hits me.

_Oh crap I just touched an ancient thing and now I've broke it!_ Run! Hide! Make sure they never know it was you!

It was like it when I got here!

That's a good enough excuse. Maybe I could mention something about an angry froslass.

Except that wouldn't work because my brains are still inside my head.

I'm just about ready to run away and pretend I never did anything when something inside the bed catches my eye. Hidden behind the block of night-ice are a little stack of papers, yellow with age and with the smell that lingers in every library and museum.

I look around and find no one's watching. As quickly as I can I reach in, grab the papers and hug them to my chest, like I'm protecting them from invisible predators.

Once a minute has passed and I'm certain no one's randomly going to drop from the ceiling, I unfold them and start to read them –

- only to discover they're written in symbols I can't understand.

So unfair!

I consider putting them back, to retrieve when I understand them. But then, what if someone else finds them? Of course, I think about putting them in my bag and running off with them, but what if they get damaged or I lose my bag?

The sounds of the tour are getting closer. I have to decide fast, or I'm going to be caught.

At the last minute, I pull out an item capsule and hide them within. Paper and ink stores fine in them – I remember one of my history teachers at school telling us how they preserved loads of ancient texts by hiding them in item capsules. I sling the ball back into my bag just as the tour comes from a door hidden away in a shadowy corner of the room.

There's about ten people that stop and look at me as if I'm a magical ghost. When the guide asks me why I'm here, I pretend that I'm lost and my woobat's gone missing somewhere. Half of the people don't seem to know what one is, so I'm forced to explain just what they look like before I fake getting a psychic message that it's stuck somewhere on the other side of town. I race out and start sliding down the big stone steps when someone shouts that there's actual stairs on the other side of the building.

Well, a little bit too late for that.

I make my way through the snow and slush back to the pokémon centre and hole myself up in my room for a while, ancient papers on my lap. I dare not let out either of my pokémon, just in case they manage to damage them. I have no idea what's written on the papers, but there has to be something!

I stubbornly refuse to give up trying to figure out what they say until I realise that it's too dark to actually even read them. I rub my eyes and try to get rid of all the tiny little spots as I see just how late it's actually become and how much time I've spent pouring over my books and using the pokémon centre's internet to try and translate it all.

And in all that time, I've managed to translate exactly nothing.

I sigh and store away the papers back into an item capsule. All of a sudden I realise just how hungry I am and decide that it's about time I get something to eat. I'm only just putting my coat on when my door opens and both Ali and Jerry walk in, pink from the cold and laughing about something I have no idea about.

"Oh, hey Squirt," Jerry says as he notices me. He looks confused for a moment, almost like he doesn't expect to see me here. I don't know why, considering it is _my_ room too. "Have fun?"

"I guess," I say cryptically. "I confused a bunch of people by telling them I'd lost my woobat. They thought I meant zubat and then they got even more confused afterwards."

"Unova pokémon generally aren't found outside of Unova," Ali says. "Unless they're owned by a trainer or just been release by one. I don't think any of them naturally live in any other country. Oh well." She shrugs and it's like the entire conversation is forgotten. "We were just coming back to see if you were back and if you wanted to get something to eat?"

"Okay," I agree quickly. It's more entertaining to eat with them than alone and with my pokémon, after all. I only just manage to get my coat on and sling my poké balls into my pocket when the entirety of the room shakes.

"What was that?" Ali asks, voice flat.

Something cracks and I hear something distant rumble.

"What was _that?_" I wonder.

There's another loud crack and little bits of dust start raining down from the ceiling. I just about hear my brother swear before there's a deafening explosion, the roof caves in and something large falls in amidst the rubble.

I see it for less than a second before black wraps around me and everything descends into darkness, but the memory of those glowing eyes stays burned on my brain, brighter than anything I've ever seen and yet scarier than the shadows.

And somehow, I know that it knows I saw it.


	7. Helpless? Yeah Right

_Dear Diary,_

_My escape was bloody. I carved my way out through bodies and buildings. I do not, however, regret a moment of it._

_I am no longer a slave. I am no longer a tool. I am no longer a pawn._

_I am free._

_Now I come to my first problem; what does being free entail?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Helpless? Yeah Right.|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

The first thing I'm aware of once the shadows disappear is the _cold_.

Seriously, if I ever get a pokémon capable of teleporting, I'm never going from somewhere warm to somewhere cold.

I huddle up as best I can and shiver against the howling blizzards.

- Wait, _blizzards_?

I'm pretty sure there weren't any when the pokémon centre roof caved in. I frown at the snowstorm and hold my hands in front of my face and see if they're still visible. I can see just past them and that's it. Everything else is a blur of white and grey.

I hear Jerry just before he pretty much knocks me over and picks me up in a hug. I squirm against him and wonder just what's going on as he puts me down and looks really worried about something. Ali's by his side and shivering madly, but the blizzard's strong enough that even when Jerry lets Jim out, we're still freezing.

"Where are we?" I ask.

"Still in Snowpoint," he says and spins around in the snow. "Of course, it's not like you'd be able to tell right now. Where did this storm come from?"

Ali tugs on his jacket. "Where it came from isn't an issue right now. The issue is how are we going to get out of it? The gyms usually provide shelter in times like this, but I have no idea where the gym is right now."

Jerry mutters something that's lost to the wind. He looks up and I see Annie floating there, struggling against the winds and getting covered in a thin sheet of snow. It groans something that's lost in the wind, but Jerry still manages to understand somehow.

"We're going to the gym," Jerry says and grabs my shoulder. Instantly Annie's cackling and I'm back in the strange shadowy place. There are no creepy staring eyes this time and it doesn't really feel like anything's watching me. But I still know that something's hiding in the dark there somewhere and it leaves me completely unnerved.

But it's over faster that it seems, just like every other time. Jerry and Ali don't seem to notice it and if they do, they don't mention it. I decide not to say anything – if I start telling them about the strange shadowy place, I'll probably end up telling them about the weird jump-rope girls. And then they'll definitely feel weird.

The receptionist woman from yesterday is running around trying to deal with all the people coming in. I hear someone in the crowd talking about how the gym leader's gone off to help people in the pokémon centre as a few other older people try to organise everything. Someone appears in front of us and says something, but it's all smart and adult-speak so I understand nearly none of it. He tells Jerry to do something at the front door and something else I don't understand before he rushes off to help people that fall through the front doors.

"We need to help the other people coming through," Jerry tells me. "If they're hurt or something, just make sure they're alright. Jim, you're ready to cauterise a few wounds, aren't you?"

His pokémon gives a hoot and punches its chest. I just stand there wondering what cauterise happens to even mean. Stupid adult words.

He tells Ali to help a few people in because she's strong. When it comes to me, he just tells me to stand off to the side and stay out of the way. I pout at him and try to convince him I can do something. Instead he just tells me to keep out of the way and helps people.

I glare at his back and flop down heavily on the floor. Why does he force me to stay out of the way of _everything_ all the time? I'm not allowed to go places without letting him know and now something's happening, I have to stay out of the way! It makes no sense! There's people that are bleeding and everything and I'm totally not bothered by blood but I still have to stay away!

It sucks.

I see a shadow drop over me and instinctively duck away. Instead of anything bad happening, I find a little white plastic cup in front of my face with hot chocolate steaming up from inside. I wrinkle my nose at it and wonder just what might be in it before the shadow laughs.

"It's safe, don't worry about anything like that. There's people here helping out the injured and I'm stuck with hot chocolate duty."

I smile as I take the cup and look up at the man that's offered me it. As soon as I see him my eyes widen and I try my best not to drop my hot chocolate on my lap.

_Oh crap!_

I remember him! I smacked him in the face with a poké ball back in Unova! What's he doing here? Maybe he's stalking me and looking for revenge! He's going to smack me in the face with a poké ball and then I'm going to become all bright and glowy and red and then I'll be trapped inside a poké ball forever!

He just smiles as I start to plan my escape. I'm about to run when he just grins around his cup and says, "So at least you're not hitting me in the face with poké balls today."

I yelp and hold the cup up as if it will render me invisible from him. "That totally wasn't me," I say when I see him smiling. "I mean, I might have thrown the ball, but it was the ball's fault because it hit you when I was aiming at a purrloin, because they're cute and evolve into awesome stalky cats. It's the purrloin's fault really. You should blame it."

He just chuckles to himself and squats down next to me, blowing the steam away from his chocolate. "It's alright. I have a little sister, so I'm used to getting hit in the face with objects. Generally dolls or sometimes the doll house, but poké balls have smacked me in the face a few times."

"Oh," I say. That makes me feel a bit better, at least. I sit there and smile a little as I take a little of the drink. It doesn't smell poisoned – but what does poison smell like? Maybe like a trubbish or something like that? It doesn't taste weird either and I don't think I'm going to do the weird sigh-hand-on-head and fainting thing that a load of women on the TV do when they're poisoned.

"So you're not allowed to help either?" he asks me.

I shake my head and feel a little bit of hair come loose from my hat. "No. My brother won't let me because he's weird like that. Why aren't you helping?"

He shrugs. "I don't like blood. It makes me feel funny. So with people and pokémon coming in bleeding…" He shudders to himself and nearly falls over. I just smile and think about it. It would be weird to not like blood. What would you do when you scrape your knees? Or accidentally cut yourself with a knife?

"So I'm stuck giving out drinks to people that look like they need them," he says with a shrug. "This was meant to be for that boy other there," he says, pointing around his cup. I see the boy he means; some kid with bright orange hair and a fat face. He's talking to a big, tall pokémon I've never seen before and I can hear little bits of his complaints from over here.

"He told me he doesn't drink cheap swill and then told me to begone," he tells me. He smiles, brushes a bit of swoopy blonde hair from his face and takes another drink. "So I decided I'd drink it for him. He's obviously not been a trainer long if he's not going to take food and drink when it's offered."

"But my parents always told me not to," I point out. "Or at least if I was out and in the middle of nowhere and a creepy person came up and offered me food." I shrug to myself and take another sip. "But you don't seem that creepy. And we're in the middle of all these people so you'd be stupid to try and take me. And also if you did, Ali and Jerry would beat you up."

He just laughs and doesn't say anything about that. "So you're a pokémon trainer then?"

"Yup," I say, nodding with enthusiasm I didn't know I felt towards it. Weird. "Are you?"

"Sort of," he says, tilting his head like a puppy. "I'm a pokéathlete. I basically train my pokémon and myself up and then enter really strong competitions. They have to do things like navigate spiked mazes and pitfall traps without getting hurt."

"Really?" I gasp, interested already. It sounds like all those game shows I used to watch that I really wanted to go on but Dad would never let me. I'm half expecting him to say no and just be tricking me when he nods and says it's all true.

"It can be fun, but you need to be a good trainer first," he tells me. He pushes down on his knees and stands up, telling me he needs to give out more chocolate to people. I look around and see how many people there are in here now and feel just a little bit overcrowded. "I'm Connor, by the way."

"Okay," I say, smiling up at him.

He smiles again. "You remind me so much of my sister. Take care kid. Good luck in your gym battle."

I go to tell him I'm not fighting here but he's already gone. I shrug to myself and carry on sipping at my chocolate until Ali returns a few minutes later, panting for breath and looking like she really needs sleep.

She stares at the cup in my hand for a really long time, almost as if it's magic. "Where'd you get that from?"

I shrug. "A boy was giving them out. He's nice."

"Really?" she asks, one eyebrow rising. "Nice how?"

"He spoke to me and told me he's afraid of blood, so he has to give out drinks instead of helping people." I shrug to myself and see Ali looking around and then back at my drink. "Do you want the rest of my chocolate? It tastes kinda like water anyway."

She smiles. "Go on then," she says, takes it and takes a big gulp of it before I can warn her how hot it is. Her eyes seem to grow out of her head and fill with tears before I see her swallow and start fanning her tongue. "You could have warned me!" she pants.

"I was going to!" I say between laughs. "You drank it before I could say anything!" She scowls at me, so I poke my tongue out at her in response. "Do they know what caused everything with the pokémon centre then?"

She shrugs. "Something big would be my guess. I mean, it's gotta be something huge to do something like that, because can you see something like a joltik crashing into a building a bringing it down?"

"It depends what throws it," I tell her. "Something big throwing it like a golurk could cause a lot of damage, couldn't it?"

"Possibly," Ali says. She shrugs and tilts her head to the side, frowning. "I think it would be like Angry Flyers. Although I'm thinking of the little blue pidgey that double team when you click on the screen."

I just stare at her, completely lost. Ali laughs and takes a slow sip of the chocolate. "It's a videogame," she says, as if that explains everything. "It's really popular, especially in Kanto; they've got t-shirts and bags promoting it – there's even meant to be a theme park of it coming out soon."

"Sounds cool," I whisper and turn back around to see more people running through the doors. I sigh to myself and hug my knees as I wonder just what happened with the pokémon centre and what might have caused it all. "When do you think we won't have to stay in here anymore?"

Ali shrugs and spins around so she's sat next to me. We slide back against the wall and lean against it, just watching people panic and try to help everyone.

"They need to find out what caused all of this first," Ali says, finally. "Which means that the gym leader will probably be away for a few days trying to figure out what happened here. So in all likelihood, I'm going to miss out on _another_ gym battle."

"Sorry," I mumble into my knees.

"It's not like it was your fault," she says, rubbing my head. I smile at her and think to myself about the creepy demon-things in the darkness and the strange little girls. They're all really weird, but I mean, I'm not the only one that can see them, right?

"So why aren't you helping anymore?" I ask, eager to distract myself.

"That guy there," she says, pointing at a man with bright red hair, like a clown. "He's apparently a trained doctor, so he's helping out here whilst they try and figure out everything. I'm more concerned about the gym leader – I've heard strange things about her."

"Really?" I whisper, leaning in. "Like what?"

"Weird things," she says, frowning. "Like that she apparently died a number of years ago."

"What?" I start to get pictures of a zombie, rotting away, moaning and somehow still directing a pokémon battle. "How?"

"Don't know. There were rumours a while ago that she'd been killed by a dragon, or something like that, but then there was something about how there had been a miraculous recovery. She keeps her face hidden at all times now – she wears this big cloak that wraps around her head – and apparently people are convinced that it's not even her." Ali shrugs and taps her fingers against the floor, closes her eyes and hums something in time with her drumming. "Maybe we'll find out, huh?"

"Maybe," I agree, not quite convinced. I see Jerry still helping people as best he can and someone that looks like Connor pass out when a bleeding black pokémon is carried in front of him.

Whatever's happening here is strange, to say the least. And something tells me that either there's going to be another dead legend behind everything, or something really weird is going on in Snowpoint Temple.

I can honestly say I'm not certain what one I'd prefer.

**-O-O-O-**

Four days later, and they're still confused about what happened that night at the pokémon centre. They've rebuilt enough so that we can stay there again, rearranged all the gym battles to suit everyone and generally made sure people are recovering as best as they can.

But it doesn't stop the fact that I'm _bored_.

I honestly never thought I'd be bored of snow. I mean its snow! It's slippy and fun to throw and people and it usually means days off school! But when it's here all the time, burying large patches of ice and generally threatening to break my legs, it's not as amusing as I thought it would be.

I've tried training my pokémon, but people are still freaking out. Apparently there was a big pokémon that ran around near here years ago and killed a few people. They say it started something big and life-changing, but I can't remember because honestly, I just _don't care_. Sure it's history, but not the cool stuff with ancient people killing huge donphan with spears so they can eat! It's the boring things about people saying something and then that happening because of it. I want to know about myths and dead people – the mysteries! Not the things everyone already knows.

I sigh to myself as I swing my legs beneath my chair, waiting in the pokémon centre's lobby, bored beyond belief. There's people still wandering around, laying pipes and stuff like that, but the building's back up again and it's _warm_. That's the main thing people care about.

I might be warm, but I still need something to do. Ali and Jerry are training in the gym and I can't go because I'm still waiting for my pokémon to get healed. They keep telling me that I'm not allowed out of the town on my own because of everything that happened, but there's nothing I can do _in_ the town!

I mean, not since Mandy attacked that one man's stall and dropped a frozen watermelon on that woman's foot. It turns out that vullaby aren't that common to Sinnoh and they figured out it was me pretty quickly, just as I was trying to disguise Mandy as a murkrow.

I play with my pokédex for a little while, reading through useless information when I see someone I recognise sat in the corner, his face buried deep in a newspaper. I grin as I sneak over to him, hide underneath his newspaper and wait for the best moment to try and scare him.

"You do realise I can see you, right?"

I shriek and dive away like he's on fire. He looks over his newspaper at me, smirks and returns back to his paper. "You're not exactly quiet, you know that?"

"But I'm _bored_," I protest loudly. When he ignores me, I flick his paper and wait for him to do something. He gives no reaction so I hit it again, whining as I do so. "Connor… I'm bored!"

He does nothing still, so I steal his stupid newspaper from his hands.

"Hey!" he shouts, leaping after me. I laugh, pleased with myself at _finally_ getting a reaction and scurry away, sheets of paper floating free and decorating the pokémon centre's floors.

"I was reading that!" he screams after me. Finally he catches me, picks me up by my waist and holds me upside down as I scream and refuse to hand the silly paper back to him. "There's something important in that," he tells me.

"I don't care," I shout. My brain hurts and I can feel how bright red my cheeks are as all the blood rushes into my head. Connor pulls me up higher in the air and suddenly drops me. I scream and just before I hit the ground, he catches my ankles and starts to lift me higher into the air again.

"I can keep doing this all day," he says.

"Alright!" I scream and still try to wriggle free. He lets me down on the floor gently and smiles as I pout and shove what remains of the newspaper into his chest. As soon as he's recovered it, he walks over to a nearby chair, fluffs out the newspaper and starts reading it like nothing's happened.

I huff as he continues not to pay attention to me. Finally I give up standing there, alone in a field of forgotten papers and throw myself into the chair next to him

"Whatcha reading?" I ask, like he hasn't just been dangling me above certain doom.

"The paper."

I poke him in the side and laugh as he giggles and screams at once. "You're not funny. What's the _story_ you're reading?"

He glares at me as he rubs his ribs and holds out the paper so I can see it. There's a massive picture of some strange guy about Jerry's age with bright green hair. It's the same colour as the nasty man's snotty beedrill and I'm pretty sure they served up soup at school that was the same colour too.

"This guy's fifteen," Connor tells me, pointing his thumb at silly-hair's face, "and he's just been admitted into the Elite Four here. Apparently he's a real master with bugs – better than anyone they've ever seen."

I glance at the headline, _'Aaron, the Insect Overlord'_ and frown. "That's weird," I say, swinging my legs again. "Why would anyone want to train all bugs?"

"I do," Connor says.

"Really?" He nods and I smile up at him. "You're weird then."

He rolls his eyes and slaps me on the head with his newspaper. "And you're a bratty little ten year old." He stands up, stretches his back and I hear the bones pop. "Anyway, I'm going to train my pokémon. Catch ya later Brat."

"Wait!" I shout, leaping out of my chair and after him. "Are you going out of town?"

"Yeah," he snorts, like I've asked if snow is white. "Why? What are you after?"

"Take me with you!" I plead.

He looks like I've asked him to do the worst crime imaginable. "No way," he says, shaking his head. "Your brother stuck you here, didn't he? So what's he going to say if he finds out you've wandered off into the wilds with a guy that's nearly twice your age?"

"But I'm bored!" I whine petulantly.

"The answer's no."

"Fine!" I shout after him. "I'll just follow you anyway then!"

He sighs and spins back around to face me. I grin up at him and bounce on my heels, knowing I've won. He mutters something about hating me as I dash to the reception desk and see if my pokémon are ready.

"Thank you!" I cheer as the woman hands me back my poké balls. "By the way," I whisper, leaning over the desk. "My brother doesn't want me leaving town, but I'm bored, so I'm going out of town with that guy." I point at Connor and make sure the woman knows who I'm talking about. "So if my brother starts freaking out about how he can't find me, you know who I'm with! Okay, bye!"

I run off before she can warn me about 'stranger danger' and everything like that. I'm perfectly aware of things like that – which is why I let her know just who I'm going outside with! I wouldn't be stupid enough to randomly follow an older boy into the middle of nowhere without letting someone know where I was going or who I was with.

And he says he trains bugs anyway. That just means I can use Mandy to kick his butt if he gets all weird. But he shouldn't do, because he's already spoke to Jerry and Ali. I don't know what happened, but after he spoke to Ali, Connor came back really pale and seemed like he'd seen a spiritomb.

He probably said something to upset Ali. She's _scary_ when she's mad.

I tuck my hair underneath my scarf and wrap myself up so only my eyes are out in the cold. Even still, my nose is already freezing and dribbling. "Where are we going?" I ask Connor as I slide a poké ball into each glove.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he mumbles into the wind. He shakes his head to himself, pulls up the hood of his fluffy red coat and tugs down on the strings until it wraps around his face. "Lake Acuity is about an hour's trek from here – it's a pretty good place to train."

"Okay," I say and follow after him. All the while I keep my eyes out for local pokémon. Jerry keeps lecturing me to catch more pokémon before I fight against Roark – apparently I'm going to lose because Mandy's weak against him. I keep telling him he's stupid and that I'll be fine, but even so, if I see a pokémon I want, I'll catch it.

Not because Jerry says I need a new one, though. Because I _want_ a new pokémon.

There's nothing really interesting around though. Connor's pokémon fights off a few freaky looking things that look like they're starving, but according to him that's because they do nothing but meditate all day. I think it's weird – they have really fat heads and skinny, ribby bodies. They look like half the women on television and when I tell Connor that, he throws back his head and laughs until he's nearly crying. He only stops because his tears are starting to freeze on his face.

I keep Mandy out on my shoulder for most of the trip. It squawks about the cold but enjoys fluttering around pokémon that come too close, nipping at the back of their heads and driving them into frenzies. Once or twice it manages to get a machoke angry enough to chase after it and run into a tree – both times a _huge_ owl pokémon falls out, gets angry and chases the machoke away! Mandy chases after them both times, cawing like its laughing before returning to my shoulder and chirping into my ear.

Connor has a pretty cool pokémon that stays with him all the time. It's a ladybird that's as big as me and has really _massive_ blue eyes. It has four arms that all have white hands which look like gloves and two legs that have really big red feet. I think they're hands and feet, but Connor tells me they're not and tries to say what they are, but he uses words that are just too confusing to understand.

The bug hovers in the air and looks at me, clicky things on either side of its mouth hitting each other rapidly. Connor whispers something and pats it on the head, but it still keeps watching me with those impossibly blue eyes.

Connor calls the thing Wells. He doesn't tell me why; just says I have to guess and he'll let me know when I'm right. I've tried to guess a few things but each time I've just been wrong and I'm fast running out of ideas. As I try and guess why the bug is called Wells, Mandy spends a lot of time either shrieking for attention, fluttering between us so we have to look at it or just tormenting the local wildlife.

On the plus side, at least I don't have it attached on a string like the world's worst balloon anymore.

"Tell me!" I plead after getting it wrong for what feels like the millionth time. "I promise I won't tell anyone why it's got such a weird name!"

He sighs and shakes his head at me. "Fine, tell you what; if you can beat the first trainer we come across in a battle, I'll tell you why he's named what he is."

"Deal!" I bounce around happily on the spot, pleased I've finally got _some_ leeway with it all. It just means that I need to find a pokémon trainer, which as it turns out, is a lot easier said than done.

Seriously, nearly an hour later and I've still seen no one!

Connor seems to understand I'm annoyed because of it. In the meantime, Mandy keeps annoying things and driving them into angrily injuring themselves or other pokémon. Wells just hovers alongside Connor, silently watching everything like a creepy camera. Mandy sees me shy away from it a few times and launches at it, pecks the back of its head and caws more laughter sounds as it buzzes angrily and tries to chase after it.

"Your pokémon's a pest," Connor tells me as Mandy flutters back onto my shoulder, eating what I pretend is just jerky.

"Well were yours all well behaved when you first owned them?" I shoot back, poking my tongue at him for good measure. Of course, I forget my mouth is currently hidden by a layer of scarf, so instead I end up with bits of purple fluff in my mouth. He laughs as I try to spit them all out, patting me on the head as I put my hands on my hips and glare at him. "You know what? You're a jerk! And _you're_ the first trainer I've come across in this entire route, so I'll battle _you_!"

His eyes widen just a little underneath his hood. His pokémon just cocks its head like I'm an interesting little nothing on the wall, scurrying away for freedom.

"You heard me!" I shout at him. "I'm not afraid of you! I'll beat you and then you'll have to tell me why you gave your bug such a weird name!"

He just keeps staring at me for what feels like forever. Finally he laughs and starts to walk away from me. "You know what, Half-Pint? I've been a trainer for seven years – you haven't even been a trainer for seven _weeks_. Our battle would be a little one-sided."

I roll up a snowball and throw it at him. Somehow it manages to hit him square in the back and makes him stop. "You're just afraid you'll _lose_!"

"Keep telling yourself that," he says, flipping his hand back and forth as he walks away from me. I growl at him and want to call him all sorts of names, but I'm slightly convinced Kiki will appear and needle me if I do.

I also decide that I have to follow after him to make sure I don't lose him. Not because I don't want to be out here alone, but because he might hurt himself and need me to save him.

We finally make it to the lake what feels like an age later and I find my breath taken away. The entire lake is just _ice_! The trees in the distance are all pure white, covered in snow and only the occasional bit of green pokes through. Above us the sky is grey, sprinkling us all with more snow. In the middle of the lake is a miniature mountain of rock, half-buried in snow and half in ice. A couple of little pokémon skate across the ice, cheering as they do so and something that looks like a miniature tree waddles around in the forest.

"The ice is extremely slippery," Connor tells me as he steps towards it, snow crunching underneath him. "It's also that cold that most things get stuck to it instantly, unless they themselves are cold. It means most pokémon have to cross the ice as quickly as they can before they get stuck and become easy prey."

I think I know what he's talking about. I stuck my spoon in really cold ice cream before and when I used it; my lip got stuck to the spoon. I had to pull it free and my lip felt really strange for a while afterwards. I get the mental pictures of pokémon getting stuck to the ice and flailing, searching for help and decide I really want to see it happen.

Instead Connor instructs his bug to skate across the ice and not get stuck. It shines yellow as it does so, almost like its body is made from glowing honeycombs. It touches down on the ice and skates across it with no problem, although it does occasionally lose its balance and spin out of control.

"What is that?" I wonder and step closer without realising. "It's so pretty."

"The League term is a light screen," Connor says. "It can be manifested in a few different ways – mostly it's like a shield of yellow in the air that can bounce attacks off it. But you can make a pokémon use it directly on their skin – it might not reflect as much damage, but it lets them control where it goes to a lot better. It also allows more adaptability for the pokémon."

"It's so cool!" I squeal, bouncing up and down. Mandy seems to find it interesting too – it chases after the sliding ledian, trying to pry away pieces of shining gold skin. "Can you teach my pokémon it?"

"Neither of yours can learn it."

So not fair!

I sigh and shove a pile of snow off an old tree trunk so I can sit down. Connor glances at me, sees what I'm doing and shrugs to himself, busy training his ledian. Mandy spends the entire time chasing after it and since he doesn't seem to mind, I don't say anything about it. Jerry's been telling me I need to train my pokémon more, after all and letting Mandy fly around, chasing after something in the snow and cold is definitely training in some way.

It strikes me as strange that Connor only trains one of his pokémon at a time. Jerry and Ali are always training as many as they can at once and even I make sure both Kiki and Mandy get trained at the same time. When I ask him, he just smiles and shrugs a little.

"It's easier this way," he tells me, still watching his pokémon. "The competition is divided into five categories, like speed and power. You make a pokémon focus on that one aspect alone so that it can dominate the others, because faster pokémon are going to avoid things flying at them; stuff like that. It's easier for me to see how much my pokémon are progressing rather than, say having three different pokémon out, one training for speed, another for power and another for endurance."

"Makes sense," I surmise. I sigh to myself and find myself just as bored out here as I was back in the pokémon centre. But at least there I was _warm_. Here I'm bundled up in clothes and I'm fairly certain there are icicles hanging from my nose. Of course, now I'm out here I'm going to have to do something, because I can't really walk back all the way to Snowpoint on my own and I'm not sure Connor is going to stop training to help me back, just after I've made him take me all the way out here.

It's as if my prayers have been answered when I hear someone approaching. Connor notices it too and waves for his ledian to stop racing on the ice; it does so almost instantly and gracefully twists out of the way of a charging Mandy, who carries on flying and lands in a pile of snow. I help my pokémon out of the snow as a bundle of dark green clothes appears in the snow with what looks like a white fox walking alongside it.

The person and Connor stare at each other for a long moment and I'm afraid something bad is going to happen. Then Connor shrugs and tells Wells to keep training and just like that, the moment's over. The walking mountain of clothes carries on past us, the little white fox bouncing alongside it.

"Just making sure he wasn't going to cause any trouble," Connor whispers to me. "Some people out here in the wilds think they can get away with anything."

"Oh," I grunt and shrug it off quickly. I chase after the man with the fox as quickly as I can, Mandy fluttering along behind me. "Hey you!" I scream after him. The fox flicks a long, dark blue ear back at me, stops walking and twists its head back to see me. It's kind of pretty, I decide, with its big dark blue eyes and long floppy ears.

He stops just after his pokémon does and turns slowly. "Yes?" he grunts, accent not-at-all familiar.

"Battle me!" I demand. Mandy fluffs up and tweets something at him afterwards.

The man just takes a long moment staring at me. As soon as I start to feel uncomfortable, he nods and plucks a poké ball out of his pocket. "Two on two?"

I bite my lip for a moment. Both my pokémon in this one match? Sure, I've done stuff like that before, but that was when I was with Ali or Jerry and near a town. Here I'm in the middle of nowhere and with no one I really know all that well.

But it's not like I'm going to lose. I _have_ to win, because I'm going to find out why Connor's ledian has such a weird name when I do!

"Alright," I say, reaching under my glove for Kiki's poké ball.

Then suddenly, the guy throws _two _poké balls forwards! Both of them explode in flashes of light and I find myself standing opposite a huge orange otter and an ugly rock-thing with a massive red nose and a silly red hat.

"Double battle?" he suggests, even though he's already decided on that.

I nod and gulp at the same time. I've never been in a double battle before. I mean, what do I do? Can I control two pokémon at once? What if something happens and both pokémon gang up on one of mine? Is that even fair?

I'm really starting to think I might have gotten myself into something I can't handle here.

"A-alright," I say and fetch Kiki's poké ball from beneath my glove. It appears in a flash of white light, grunts at the surroundings and hisses as little tiny snowflakes land on its prickly skin. Mandy, meanwhile just sits down atop Kiki's head, chirping happily, almost like there isn't an angry otter stood a few feet away and staring them both down.

"Challenger goes first," the man tells me, burying his chin in his hand.

I nod and try my best to think of how I can win this. Kiki can beat up both of the things, can't it? But then what if they can deal with grassy pokémon? What if the snow on the floor stops Kiki from settling its roots normally? What if Mandy just gets in the way and everything like that?

Guh. Thinking too much.

I shake my head and press down on the spiralling ball of nerves that my stomach has become. "Guys! Shroud!"

It's a miracle they react instantly. Mandy takes off into the air as Kiki puffs up and shoots balls of cotton fluff into the air. They float aimlessly into the sky and Mandy beats its wings heavily, creating a miniature tailwind that swirls around us all, cloaking my pokémon in a mixture of snow and cotton fluff.

Of course, I also forget it means that _I can't see my opponents._

There's a roar and massive-weasel-thing bursts out of the swirling shield, frost swirling around its hands. Kiki grunts as the otter thing swings for it; Kiki ducks low and swings back up with an arm full of needles that tears the skin along the weasel-thing's legs. Mandy shrieks a challenge and dive bombs in, chirping furiously as it sits on the weasel-thing's head and continues to peck and scratch away at its face.

I dance around on the spot, excitement bubbling. Something crackles in the distance and with a pang of horror I realise I've forgotten about the freaky face thing! Kiki plants down in the ground and Mandy hunkers down, glowing a soft green as a ball of shining light hammers into them both, bounces off them, shoots into the sky and explodes into a shower of sparks.

I try my best not to get distracted by the lights and focus instead on the battle. I can't hear the other trainer over the howling winds, but that should mean he can't hear me. Snow flickers in front of my face, cotton balls get stuck to my clothes and I see the shapes of pokémon scrapping amidst the shadows of white.

Kiki shudders and spreads needles and seeds all over the snowy floor. The otter thing roars as it tries to attack them, trips over the seeds and becomes tangled up in living vines. It thrashes on the floor and only manages to get itself stuck in more and more spikes, whilst Kiki quite easily shoots it from a distance with even more needles.

Out of nowhere there's another blast of electricity. Mandy shrieks and hides as it bounces off Kiki and fizzles out into nothing. The otter thing growls and looks weaker the more Kiki looks stronger. I smile to myself at the genius of it all; Mandy can fly and neither of the opponents can come in close without getting trapped in the seeds and spikes!

A humming sound, like an old electric motor starts coming closer, through the snowstorm. Mandy and Kiki both tense as the shadow forms and drifts ever so slowly towards us.

The freaky nose-thing _floats_!

Mandy leaps atop the otter and pecks it into submission. The nose-thing floats towards them both, humming ominously in the snowstorm. I go to scream an attack at my pokémon but all of a sudden the nose-thing drops and the entire earth shakes like I've never felt before! I lose my balance and fall face first into the snow, struggle for a moment and try my best to get up and see what's going on!

When I look up, Mandy is on the thing's face, attacking its eyes and Kiki looks like it's about to pass out. I see a couple of seeds stuck to the nose-thing's huge red nose and watch as it struggles to stay afloat much longer. Kiki takes a breath and it's almost like Mandy knows to move before I do; it takes to the sky just as Kiki spits a torrent of exploding seeds into nose-thing's face! It groans, wobbles in the air and drops to the floor, just in time for Mandy to leap on its face and continue attacking it while it's down. Kiki glows a little green and out of nowhere, a series of thick, throbbing roots_ burst_ out of the ground, wrap around it and start to _squeeze_ and _squeeze_ until I'm pretty sure the thing has to have stopped breathing.

Suddenly it bursts into bright red light. Mandy tweets as it flutters in the air for a second before it drops to the snowy ground all of a sudden. Kiki looks exhausted as it pulls in its roots and shuffles about, shaking off snow that covers its body. Slowly the winds die down, revealing the man stood opposite me, two poké balls held in one hand and his fox-thing demanding his other hand's attention.

"You're pretty good," he tells me, reaches into his wallet and hands me a few bills. My eyes widen at the sight and I try to stop myself from having a heart attack. He walks off and tells me he's sure as I ask him if he's certain and from then on, I become only able to communicate in high-pitched squeals, like a woobat.

"What's up?" Connor asks as he trudges through the snow. "You won, right? What's with the screaming?"

"_Look_!" I shriek and hold the bills in front of his face. _So_ much money! I could buy loads of things with this! I don't know what to buy first! There's so many places and I need new shoes and probably some new socks because mine are starting to get holes in, but then maybe I should get a thicker coat and something else…

"And here I thought you were in need of babysitting," Connor says. He shrugs when I ask him what he means and recalls Wells back into its ball. "I named Wells after a famous author," he says. "I've got five other pokémon, you realise? Although I'm starting to think maybe setting battles isn't much of a challenge for you."

I smile to myself and maintain innocence as Mandy drops something into my waiting hands. "I've got an idea of how I can win the rest of your pokémon's names though."

"Really? What?"

I throw the snowball and hit him square in the face. He shrieks and falls backwards as I laugh and hide behind a pile of snow. Kiki tutters and smacks the snowy floor, sending _loads_ of snow over Connor and I can't stop myself from laughing.

From nowhere his ledian appears – even though he's just recalled it! – and drops a pile of snow on Mandy and I. From there, Mandy chases after the huge bug and the war is most definitely on.

**-O-O-O-**

It's already dark by the time I make it back to the pokémon centre. I'm more than a little soaked from melting snow and neither Connor nor I know who won our snowball fight. Because I had two pokémon helping me, he let out this _huge_ shiny red thing with massive pinchy-claws and yellow eyes that flew all around us and threw snowballs hard enough to make little bruises! After that Mandy dropped loads of snow on me and then Kiki threw loads back at it, then I got confused as to what was happening.

I grin to myself as I hand my pokémon over to be healed, wave goodbye to Connor and skip happily to my room. It takes a shower and another few layers of clothes for me to start getting warm again, but I can't stop smiling because I had _loads_ of fun.

Predictably, my brother doesn't see it that way.

"You went off into the middle of nowhere with a _man you don't even know_?" he shrieks at me, face all bright red.

I stand on my tiptoes and try my best to glare at him. "_You_ left me here in the pokémon centre! What am I meant to do all day? I'm meant to be a trainer; that means _training_ my pokémon! You never let me come along with you and Ali!"

He pokes me on the head and forces me back down from tiptoes. "That's because we're doing harder training; it would be dangerous for you to come along."

"I'm stronger than you think I am!" I don't know where Ali is – she left the room as soon as we started arguing – but she can help me here! She knows I can defend myself! "It's _your_ fault anyway!"

"It's _my_ fault you were stupid enough to wander outside with someone you don't know?"

"I told the woman at reception who I was going with! _She_ knew! If I disappeared, at least people would know what the boy I went with looked like!"

"For the love of-" Jerry hisses, throwing his hands into the air. "Are you _actually_ this stupid, or are you trying hard to prove someone wrong?"

I take a deep breath and kick him in the shin as hard as I can. As he hops around in pain, I grab my phone and hold it out like it's an amazing treasure. "If you're so right, I'll ring Mum and Dad. I'll tell them that you left me all alone in the pokémon centre when you're meant to be looking after me!"

His eyes widen and he tries to leap for my phone. "They'll tell _you_ off for being so stupid."

"I don't care," I say mutinously. "It's _your_ fault and you left me here when you're meant to be looking after me! You pretend I don't exist now, all because you _like_ Ali!"

"I don't," he tries to say, but he's turning an even darker shade of red.

"Yes you do," I say as forcefully as I can. "You _like_ her and you pretend that I don't exist because of that!" I drop my phone onto my bed and flop down on it afterwards, bouncing on the mattress without any joy. "I thought when you came to meet me, we'd get to go exploring and everything and you'd look out for me because you're my big brother. Instead you keep pretending I'm not here and telling me I'm not allowed to do anything because I'm too young."

"But you _are_ young," he protests. He sighs and squats in front of my bed, wobbling a little until he holds the bed to steady himself. "Look… being a trainer means you have to grow up fast. I sometimes miss the innocence of being a child; I don't want you to end up with the same view of the world most trainers get. You're my little sister," he says, patting my head, "that means I don't want you seeing things like dead pokémon or being thrown into do or die situations."

I manage to smile, just a little. "But I've already seen dead pokémon," I point out. "And I've had random things drop on the pokémon centre and destroy it while I was there."

"I… _fine_." He jumps to his feet and sits on the bed opposite me. "But I can't let you randomly wander off with people you don't know like that."

"It's how I met Ali," I point out, even if it's not strictly true.

"Yeah, but it's different with guys."

"Because I'm a girl, right?" I say and can't help but roll my eyes. "I told the receptionist woman where I was going! I kept my poké balls in my gloves so if anything happened, he wouldn't be able to take them away from me! Why can't you treat me like a grown up and not like I'm a little kid who can't do anything? If Mum and Dad let me travel then _they_ think I'm grown up enough for this!"

"Yeah, but…"

I growl at him and fold my arms defiantly. "Jerry, I'm a trainer now. I beat a guy with a massive weasel-otter thing and a freaky nose-thing today. I'm not weak – ask Connor or Ali! And I want to go exploring Snowpoint Temple tomorrow."

Jerry looks at me like I've told him I want to set myself on fire and run past a group of weezing.

"You're kidding me, right? You're not going in there."

"I _am_," I tell him, "whether you like it or not. So you can come with me and see that I'm not as weak as you think I am, or you can ignore me again so you can spend another day with Ali. And if you do, I'll find even weirder, older boys to help me out."

Not that I actually would, but he doesn't know that.

"Fine," he grunts, frowning at me. "We'll go there tomorrow. But you're going to listen to me; if I say it's getting too dangerous in there, we leave straight away, alright?"

"Totally," I say, biting back my smile. It's a chance for me to finally prove to him that I'm not just a silly little kid that needs protecting – I'm ten and have pokémon that can beat things up at my every command! If he could do it when he was my age then he just needs to learn that I can do it even better than he ever could.

**-O-O-O-**

As I shudder and hug my elbows for warmth, I decide that when I grow up, I'm living somewhere really warm. Maybe in a volcano. At least then I'd never have to worry about being so cold that all the snot in my nose freezes and makes me want to sneeze continually.

Jerry has Mitchel out with us in the gloom of the dark temple. The krokorok doesn't seem as bothered by the cold as I thought it would, but I see what Jerry means about it nearly evolving; it's scales are all a really dark red and the pink on its belly is slowly becoming grey. Jerry says it'll be another few weeks until he won't be able to use it for a while as it evolves.

Despite all the cold, I manage to smile to myself as we walk through the old temple. We've snuck away from the place the tour group goes to and instead we're in the bit that trainers are only allowed into – granted trainers with a lot more badges than Jerry or I have. Jerry still mumbles about how this is a bad idea, but I tell him I've been here before and it shuts him up for a little while.

"Stop worrying," I say at one point, shining my torch in his face. He hisses away from the light and I happily skip away a few paces. "You always do stuff like this when you're travelling on your own, don't you? What's so different now?"

"Because you're my _little sister._ Death traps don't bother me, but they do when I know my sister is in one!"

"I'll be fine," I tell him confidently. I turn around slowly, just in case, because I know that Karma might want to make me fall into a big black pit of doom just for saying something like that. I shine my light into the darkness and illuminate a little shivering pokémon. Jerry tells me it's a snorunt just as the thing shrieks and darts off into the darkness.

"I think the thing that crashed into the pokémon centre came from here," I tell Jerry. I want to brush my hands against the walls, to see if there's anything engraved on them, but I'm afraid my fingers will get stuck to the ice, even beneath my gloves.

"Maybe," Jerry says slowly. "Onix are meant to live somewhere beneath here. Steelix too."

"I heard about that," I say, humming happily to myself. "There's meant to be a big underground lake beneath all of this that's like, warm in one part and cold in another. There's meant to be loads of spheal that live there – I want one. They're cute."

"They evolve and lose that cuteness though," Jerry tells me. He looks like he's trying to remember just what it is when he sticks his fingers against his mouth, like little tusks. "They become walrein; huge walrus things that are bigger than me."

"Awesome," I decide, "I can ride that across the sea and scare people with a massive walrus that's bigger than them!"

Jerry snorts and leads me down another corridor of pure ice. Somehow the floors are solid stone still and I'm convinced someone has to come down here to make sure that happens. Everything in here is like a maze and I'm reminded of the pyramids and how they were made like mazes to hide the treasure and Pharaoh's bodies.

"What happened to you wanting a liepard?"

I smile at the thought of owning one of them. "I still want one, but I can't find one over here, can I? They're pretty much only in Unova, aren't they?"

"Yeah, almost every single Unovan pokémon is found in the wild over there – there's small clusters in other regions where people have released some, but they're usually only in groups of about ten at the most." He's silent for a long moment, leaving me to think about that, when out of nowhere he says, "I spoke to Connor this morning."

"Oh," I grunt. I don't know what to say to that, though I'm instantly curious as to why he's mentioning it. I bet he told Connor to stay away from me or something like that.

"He says you beat a trainer with a floatzel and a probopass yesterday."

"Is that what those things were?" I ask. "I tried finding them in my pokédex but it didn't really help much and I got bored after a little while of trying to find them. I found a big tortoise thing in there though – torterra, I think. It looks awesome. I want one."

Jerry sighs and puts a hand on my shoulder, pulling me in to him. "Stop trying to change the subject. I was _trying_ to say that maybe you're a bit stronger than I gave you credit for, if you can beat two fully evolved pokémon already."

"It was easy," I say, grinning happily. "Kiki covered the ground in seeds and spikes so the floatzel ran into them and got tangled up and couldn't move! Then Mandy kept attacking it while it was down until it passed out. The nose-thing was harder and I don't really know what happened because it shook the ground and I fell over and couldn't see all of it, but I know that Kiki shot a load of exploding seeds at it!"

"Calm down," he whispers, squeezing my shoulder. "We're in this place which is pretty much a pokémon nest – you don't want to bring down a hoard of angry frosslass down on us, do you?"

I slam my mouth shut and shake my head quickly. He smiles at me, pats my head and takes a few steps away, frowning as he looks around the corridor. "I can't really see anything different about this place. Why did you want to come here?"

I shrug. "Dunno. Just felt like it." I take a few steps into the corridor and instantly it's like the world's changed in less than a moment. Where it was only cold before, suddenly it's _freezing_. I can feel all my body start to get really cold and my breath doesn't so much fog as refuse to come out at all. I fall back a step, trip over my own feet and land in the relative warmth, panting for air and wondering _what the heck is going on?_

Jerry's shouting my name and shaking me by the shoulders, I realise, a little belatedly. I shake my head and tell him I'm fine as I try to figure out just what happened. I feel so warm now, even in the cold and I'm pretty sure all the water in my tummy is still half-ice.

"What?" Jerry asks and takes a step towards the freezing cold.

"Don't-!" I shout at him, but it's too late. He steps there, goes blue in the face and falls back just as quickly as I did. I barely manage to roll out of the way in time as he falls over and lands heavily on the floor. Mitchel's hissing and sniffing Jerry curiously, tail arched in the air. I don't know what it means and I don't really care as I try to shake life back into Jerry.

"What?" he asks when he can speak again. He sucks in a deep breath and glares at the mystery zone, but there's nothing that _looks_ weird about it. Mitchel sniffs at the air around the spot, hisses and spits something purple and gross into the corridor. I watch as before my eyes it freezes in the air and drops to the floor; a perfect sphere of purple ice.

I want to ask just what's going on when footsteps start echoing all around us. Mitchel looks like it doesn't know whether to attack or run and so instead stays there, hunched on all fours and hissing dangerously at the dark. Jerry leaps to his feet and has Annie out in the flick of a wrist, but even the ghost looks unnerved at everything that's going on.

I'm just about to release Mandy when I see a figure appear in my torchlight. I can't see anything of them but the long black cloak they wear that whips around in a breeze I don't feel. The cloak hides their head in a big black hood and there's just _nothing_ about them that will tell me just who or what they are.

Finally, the figure stops in front of us, still in the _freezing_ part of the corridor and lifts up its cloaked head. "You shouldn't be here," it says, voice raspy but somehow female.

"Who are you?" Jerry asks it – her? – as he moves in front of me, blocking me with an arm.

"You shouldn't be here," the thing repeats, taking another step towards us. We back away and both Jerry's pokémon growl at the figure until it stops and seems to look us up and down once more. "I am Candice, gym leader of Snowpoint City."

Jerry stops for a moment, almost like he's considering whether or not she's telling the truth. I don't know myself, but I just want to get out of here and pretend I haven't seen the freaky cloak-lady and the corridor of freezing death.

"Am I supposed to believe that instantly?" Jerry asks her. She reaches into her cloak and instantly Jerry's pokémon are about to attack her, but they stop as she flashes a big League badge at us. It squint to see it in the dark and see what looks like a big shadow dragon circling two huge things that look like a blue and pink dinosaur. It's all gold and shiny and beneath the badge is a little card with a picture of a woman with black hair pulled into pigtails.

"Ah," Jerry says slowly. "Alright then. We'll… just be leaving then."

I think that's a brilliant idea. I'm already tugging on his sleeve and trying to drag him away, aware of the creepy cloak lady still stood there in the cold, watching us and saying nothing.

I glance back at her to make sure she's not following us or anything. Jerry does the same and for a moment, they seem to lock eyes. I'm not sure how I know, but Candice smiles and it makes me shudder violently.

"Good luck in your gym battle tomorrow, Jeremy," she says and vanishes back into the icy darkness.

That woman is officially the scariest, creepiest thing I've ever met.


	8. And For All of Your Power

_Dear Diary,_

_Fear._

_What is this concept and why do I not understand it? It is an instinct; that much is certain. But why does it limit us, whilst at other times it aids us? Fight or flight, they call it. But is it flight when fear paralyzes you and stops you from escaping?_

_I asked these questions as they tried to stop me._

_I received no answers but their dying screams. They were intelligent, but in the end they did not teach me._

_Perhaps my answers lay elsewhere…_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|And For All Your Power, Where Is Your Strength?|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

I'm not scared.

Surely, if I say it enough times, I should start to believe it. The only problem is that no matter how many times I whisper it to myself, I just _don't._

"Come on Squirt," Jerry says, patting me on the head. "She's not all that scary."

I glare at him from the cover of my hat and scarf. She _is_ that scary! She lives in this den of ice, surrounded on all sides by frozen walls and floors and _things _that don't seem like they know what warmth is! Just sitting here on this bench, waiting for the creepy-ice-lady is making my nose grow wet and numb!

"I don't like her," I mutter darkly. "She's weird." She has to be weird, because no one can live in somewhere so cold without being slightly weird! Ali says it's because she's adapted to ice, but I don't believe that. The place was just too cold! It shouldn't have made Jerry and I both freeze up and forget how to breathe!

Snowpoint Temple is _evil._

"Don't you worry about her," Ali says. She puts her arm around my shoulders and pulls me into her. "I'll make sure to kick her frozen butt for you. With any luck it'll shatter like glass."

I grin madly. This is why I like Ali. She's always ready to beat up the people that scare me or are just a bit too weird for me to be anywhere near. I laugh to myself at the thought of scary-ice-lady melting like an ice cube in the sun and find myself a little bit more relaxed about having to be anywhere near her again.

Then at that moment, she rounds the corner into the waiting room and I have to fight the urge to hide underneath the bench.

With her is a kid about my age. He wears a lot of dark green and has bright ginger hair that sticks out of his hat in big clumps. He talks to the scary woman as if she's nothing that frightening and happily accepts something that looks like a badge from her before he leaves.

If someone like him can beat her, either he's amazingly strong or she's all scare and no battle. I'm not sure what one to believe and it seems like I don't really have much time to think about anything like that as she looks up and pins her gaze on me.

She's still wearing that freaky cloak. It _still_ flutters like there's a breeze which makes me convinced she's hiding fans in her armpits.

"Follow me," she rasps, her face hidden in her cloak but her head pointing at Jerry. She seems to glance at me and Ali before she nods to something. "You two may follow – I will direct you to the spectator seats before the match. After the match, please make your way down to the field."

Ali nods. "Of course." There's no fight to her voice, just simple words. It's strange to hear her speak like that. I think it's because she's seen scary cloak-lady for the first time and has to understand what I meant about her!

As scary lady starts leading us through corridors made of thick, black ice, I hang back with Ali and hug myself. "How is her cloak even moving like that?" I whisper.

Ali grins at me. "Maybe she's got gas?"

I descend into a fit of giggles that are only stopped by the scary lady stopping and looking at us. She points us up a flight of stairs and I can feel her eyes on my back as I make my way up and into the stands above the arena. All the chairs are in lines upon lines, like those in the football stadium in Nimbasa, except here they're a dull blue and coated in frost.

In fact, it's cold enough in here that I can see frost floating around in the air. We grab seats on the bottom row, as close to the battlefield as possible and end up still bouncing up and down in our seats in an attempt to get warm. Finally Ali lets out Jude and we place the pignite in front of us both, holding our hands towards it like an open fire.

"I need to get a fire pokémon," I decide. I consider trying to roast marshmallows over Jude too, but by the way it snorts and slaps its gums together, I decide that they'd probably only end up covered in pignite drool.

"They're pretty awesome," Ali tells me, "but of course, you need to train them first. They're not exactly polite with their fire at first so you'll often end up having to run around trying to put out fires. And trust me on this; you don't ever really want to wake up and find out your pokémon has burnt off your eyebrows in your sleep. _Not_ an attractive look."

"I'll just catch something that's warm then," I decide. Something that won't be likely to burn my face off in my sleep sounds nice. Or something that won't freeze it off. Or drown me. Or potentially just kill me.

I'm not entirely certain that leaves a lot of pokémon left.

"Oh look, creepy-demon-lady's out here."

I follow Ali's finger and stare at the battlefield, where Jerry's taking his place on a podium opposite her. Creepy-lady announces herself as Candice, says a few boring rules – who knew there were so many? – and then finally gestures for Jerry, as the challenger, to go first.

He nods and throws a poké ball forwards. From the flash of light, the familiar sight of his throh appears. It seems to be covered in a few more scars than I remember, and it now wears a black robe with a bright red belt, but other than that it looks exactly the same as the monster that used to jump out of closets and scare me when I was little.

It adjusts to the battlefield almost instantly, though it seems to see me out of the corner of its eyes and when it does, it actually smiles and waves at me.

"That's actually kinda cute that it remembers you," Ali says.

"No it's not," I growl. "It's _evil_. It used to jump out of closets to scare me."

"My older sister used to do that to me," Ali says with a shrug. "I mean, I guess that's part of being an older sibling and _great_, she has a jynx."

I blink and look back to the battlefield, surprised I managed to miss anything. Sure enough, on creepy-lady's side of the field stands the flapping, torn red dress, tattered blonde hair and frostbitten, purple skin of a jynx. It looks even creepier than the books ever managed to show and I'm fairly certain that its skin seems to be slowly peeling off.

"There goes my hopes for an easy match," Ali mutters.

Meanwhile, creepy ice lady smirks. "End this," she hisses, slashing a hand through the air.

Jerry however, seems to have a plan up his sleeve. "Stun it and then send it right back!" he barks. I've never really seen him battle before, like this so I'm already feeling excited. All of his other battles happened when I was too young to travel, so usually my parents would go and I'd be left with my grandparents. Now however, I get front row seats!

I wonder just how Punch is going to manage to stun the jynx without getting close when all of a sudden it pulls down its pants and _thrusts_ at the jynx!

Ali and I are stunned into an equal stuttering silence. Jude, in front of us snorts something I don't quite understand, whilst the jynx just _stares_ at Punch, who stands there _wiggling_. There's a moment in which the air seems to grow still and silent, when suddenly it all bursts back into life. Punch pulls up its pants and leaps at the still stunned jynx, smacks it on the side of the head and grabs its legs. Its head hits the floor hard enough that I hear the crack and without missing a moment, Punch spins it round and run by its feet and throws it straight back at scary-lady! I cheer as it seems like it's about to collide with her, but then out of nowhere it turns into bright red energy and simply washes over her.

Not fair. I wanted to see scary lady get flattened by the frostbite monster.

As Candice seems to glower from beneath her hood, Jerry's smirking and so is Punch. Ali meanwhile is laughing so hard she sounds like she's choking, which doesn't seem to get any better the moment Punch winks at her.

"I remember the first time Punch did that in a battle," I say as Ali seems to recover. "It was the first time my parents had taken me to see Jerry battle anywhere. It was only a little battle in the park near home. Dad was not impressed at all."

"I can't imagine why," Ali says.

Finally another pokémon appears for Jerry to fight. As the light fades, there's a little floating red box left behind, occasionally discharging sparks of purple electricity. I wonder just what in the world it could be before Ali tells me it's something called a rotom. I tell her that doesn't exactly help, but as the box takes flight and starts peppering Punch with frost, she tells me about how they can possess anything electrical. After that, I decide they're pretty awesome.

Punch growls as the rotom shocks it once more. I see them both light up with purple sparks and the moment Punch leaps at the rotom; it simply falls to the floor, somehow white and not moving anymore! I stop for a second and just _stare_. Punch has killed it! It has to have! Why else would it be all red one minute and then plain, white and boring the next?

That's when a red shadow pulls its way out of the floor with a haunting cackle. Punch spins around on one foot and takes a blast of yellow electricity to the face! It drops to the floor, grunting and even from a distance; I can smell burnt flesh and clothes. But it gets up again and before I even know what's happened, it's taking a blast of electricity to its arms!

It snarls, arms crossed before its face and glowing a soft green. I wonder just what it is as Punch throws its arms to the heavens and electricity arcs everywhere. As it sparks around the room, Punch vanishes in a flash of red light, only to be replaced seconds later with the familiar sight of Mitchel, who hisses, growls and then snaps up the rotom like a little rag doll and shakes it around like a lillipup with a toy.

It's at that point that the scary-lady recalls her rotom. As she does so though, the dark expanses of her hood just stare at me under I shudder and make my excuses to leave. I don't know what it is about her, but I just don't like her. I'm entirely certain she can't be human, but there's no way of proving that, short of going into the icy gloom of the temple once more, or capturing something that can withstand the cold.

I'll just make sure I'll bring someone with me, just in case I find another corridor of icy doom.

**-O-O-O-**

I'm still in the gym almost an hour later, collecting my pokémon from the training facilities there. The man running it looks like he's part beartic, considering that his eyebrows seem to reach up into his actual hair. He speaks with a thick accent I can't really understand and tells me something about the progress of my pokémon. Or possibly something to do with fish and lipstick. I can't really understand him.

Either way, at least my pokémon are back and a little stronger – supposedly. I signed them up for a cold endurance training, which I thought would be really complicated, but instead they were put in a really big freezer and blasted with little bits of cold and snow for a little while. Kiki glares at me for making it suffer like that, though the beard of icicles make any glares look positively ridiculous. Mandy seems unbothered by anything – though it never seemed really affected by the weather anyway. Instead the eyebrow-man mumbles something about Mandy attacking the snow machines and directing them at other pokémon.

I think it's funny, personally. At least they got the other trainers got their money's worth. I can't exactly help it if Mandy happens to cause mayhem wherever it happens to be.

Still better than what she did in the pokémon centre the night before, though. There was a kid going on about how awesome his new swinub was. He got really annoying and I have no idea how Mandy managed it, but somehow it left a dead swinub outside the boy's door and hid his actual swinub's poké ball on the roof. His screams had woken us all up at some time in the morning – while it was still dark!

At least they found the poké ball about an hour later. Mandy was still cackling darkly in my room, perched on my bed's headboard at the time. I don't know how she did it but I think it would be awesome to know how. I could always learn ninja skills from my equally ninja-bird.

"Hi Jerry!" I shout as he rounds the corner. He noticed I was missing after his match and tracked me down here. At least he let me carry on training rather than watching Ali's match too. It wasn't that they were boring; it was simply that I didn't want to be anywhere near scary cloak-lady. I'd told Ali as much, but I only let Jerry know I was training. He worried too much and if he knew I was scared of cloak-lady staring at me during the match, he'd probably go after her and end up frozen in a big ice cube or something.

Needless to say, bringing home my brother, trapped in a big popsicle would be kind of difficult to explain.

"Hey," he says, pats me on the head and glances at my pokémon. Kiki's still stood there, glaring defiantly still, even with all the ice covering it. Mandy meanwhile is perched atop eyebrow-man now, squawking and covering him in a fine coat of snow. Eyebrow-man seems to think it's funny, at least.

"Do I even want to know?" Jerry asks.

I shrug. "I put them in for cold-weather training. They got blasted with loads of snow and looked like vanillite! I think Kiki hates me even more now though."

Jerry glances at it once more and shrugs too. "She's not built to withstand cold. Maractus are desert pokémon."

"I know that," I say quickly. "But there's no desert here. It's all just snow. So until I catch something warm or something that doesn't mind the cold, they're going to have to learn." It's not like I keep Kiki out with me anyway. Mandy's usually out and perched on my shoulder whenever I'm wandering around in the cold – it doesn't seem bothered by it at all. Jerry says it's because most vullaby aren't bothered by the weather at all – heat, rain, snow or sandstorms, apparently they're able to hunt in all of them.

"Where's Ali?" I ask.

"With Candice. She's getting her badge now too. So since both of us got our badges from here, when do you want to leave?"

"Now?" I ask hopefully. I'm bored of the cold. I want to go somewhere warm! Even if it rains all the time! "I've still got to battle Roark," I tell him. "So can we head to wherever his gym is?"

"Well, his gym happens to be south of here, and since south happens to be the only way you can walk from Snowpoint, I guess we've got no choice, huh?" He smiles at me as I recall both my pokémon and wave goodbye to eyebrow-man, who tells me I can come back anytime for more training. Jerry suddenly goes all protective about that until I tell him that when my pokémon were training, I spent most of my time playing with eyebrow-man's daughter. She's five and kept going on about my strange pokémon, even as she sat there with a swinub that was as big as her!

"What does swinub evolve into anyway?" I ask Jerry.

He points to my pocket. "You've got a pokédex. Why not use that?"

"Because you know these things! And because you're a complete geek with pokémon so you've got to teach me what you know, right?"

He sighs and flicks my head without even looking. "Swinub evolve twice. Once into something called a piloswine, which is basically a bigger, furrier swinub with little tusks. And then that evolves into something called a mamoswine, which is a huge piloswine with less hair and insanely big tusks."

"Wow," I say, swinging my arms as we walk. "How do you know all of this?"

He grins. "I've been a trainer for five years. You learn a lot when you're travelling. It also helps that I'm smart."

I roll my eyes. "You're a geek."

"And you're a freak."

"No I'm not!" We're about to descend into calling each other names once more when Ali leaps through the doorway, shouts something strange and makes us both scream in fright! She bursts out laughing as I scowl at her and Jerry goes bright red and tries his best to tell her he wasn't scared.

"Come on," she says between laughs. "I've gotten my badge now, so let's head back to the centre, heal up and then head off. Where are we going next?"

"South," Jerry says. "We're going to need to buy some cold-weather supplies before we go though."

She nods and they start talking about something that sounds boring and only happens to be about cold provisions. I hum to myself as we walk out of the gym and get blasted by freezing cold from outside. All the local people are walking around with thin coats, claiming this is a warm day for them. I think they're all insane snow-people. There's no way that this can be warm! I'm pretty sure my hands have already gone blue and I'm going to get a snow-beard to rival Kiki's!

Snow, I decide, is so boring when it's permanent, rather than a strange occurrence once every few months.

**-O-O-O-**

Three days into the snow and I'm fairly certain I'm going to end up crazy from the lack of any real food.

Every time we've tried to light a fire for our camp, the winds pick up or the snow drifts towards us and the fire goes straight back out. We have to settle for trying to get Jim and Jude to cook our food, but they can't really control all of their fire so most of the time we end up with crispy charcoal inside of actual food.

Then we tried cooking inside our tents, which only made them fill with steam which stuck to us and then would freeze whenever we went outside. So we've been eating nothing but little snack bars.

And on top of everything, all our water keeps _freezing._ Jerry has his bibarel out every so often to give us water, but I don't exactly like the thought of drinking vomit. It's only when Ali points out that my only option is to eat snow, which people and pokémon have walked in and used as a toilet that I decide vomit water's probably the best option.

Add to that the lack of sleep from not being able to sleep because of howling winds; I'm a little out of it.

I grunt as I catch myself falling asleep again. We've stopped to try and train our pokémon, which somehow seems to have become Jerry's dodrio and darminitan and Ali's heracross chasing Kiki and Mandy around the snowy fields. Kiki obviously can't walk much at all – it's more of a stagger that people tend to do when they walk down the road at night, shouting silly things and occasionally vomiting in their shoes. Even still Kiki manages to evade them, mainly by kicking up clouds of snow and shrouding itself beneath cotton fluff.

Everything stops suddenly though when we hear a scream come from behind the trees. Before I even realise what's happening, Jerry and Ali are both with me, their pokémon tense and growling and even Kiki's somehow made its way back. Mandy flutters above us, screeching something as Ali's gurdurr trudges its way through the snow towards us, carrying one little, screaming thing that seems to be human.

"Sam!" Ali barks as she makes her way towards it. "What are you doing, where did you find him and no you can't keep him!"

Meanwhile the kid is still screaming, flailing madly as Sam holds him up in the air like a prize. "I didn't know it was a trainer's pokémon!" the boy screams wildly.

I have to force myself through snow that's up to my waist to see the situation clearer. Ali is still talking to her pokémon, trying to convince it to put down the boy, who's screaming for his pokémon to come back to him. I see a flash of ginger beneath his dark green hat and recognition flares through me.

"I recognise you!" I say suddenly. I wade my way towards him and stare up at him. He looks completely frightened, which I guess I can understand considering he's being held up in the air. "You're the guy that beat Candice before my brother and Ali fought her!"

Ali takes him in a moment and seems to recognise him too. "So he is. Sam, put him down already. I've told you that you're not allowed to keep him, alright?"

Her pokémon grunts something and drops the boy straight into the snow. He staggers back to his feet and tries his best to shake off all the snow that's covering him before he sheepishly moves away from Sam.

"I didn't realise it was a trained pokémon," he says. "I thought it was wild, so I tried to catch it, but it beat my staravia and then picked me up and dragged me back here."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Ali says. "Sam has a strange habit of picking things up to use as weaponry ever since he lost his girder he liked so much."

"What are you doing here?" I ask the boy. Jerry seems to have made his way towards us; our pokémon too. "Are you on your own?"

He nods quickly. "I'm travelling on my own and I'm trying to get back to Eterna. I need only three more badges until I've got them all!" He looks between us then suddenly drops his eyes to the floor. "So, urm, can I go now, please?"

Ali and Jerry share a look I don't understand before they sigh. "Do you want to travel with us?" Jerry asks him. "This route's dangerous on your own and you seem like you could use the company."

The boy blinks, just as surprised as me. I don't think I've ever heard Jerry actually offer for anyone to travel with us! The few times people have asked, he's always had some weird excuse!

The boy glances at our pokémon nervously. "They won't try to eat me or anything, will they?"

Ali smiles. "Not unless you try to eat them. We were training anyway before you came along, which is why they're all out anyway."

"Alright," he says slowly. "I'm Nathan."

He's only just a bit older than me too. Apparently he's eleven, nearly twelve and has been travelling since he was ten as well. He tells me that he started off with something called a hippopotas which has nearly evolved and he's got five other pokémon too. I see them later when he lets them out to train – there's the staravia he mentioned, a vine-monster he says is a tangela, a monkey that's butt is on fire, a bronzor and a floatzel too.

I stare at my own meagre collection of pokémon and decide that I have to try and capture something. The only problem is that with all of our pokémon out, nothing comes near us for me to capture. Every time I try to wander off to find something, Jerry or Ali always appears to tag along with me and their pokémon scare away everything before I even get the chance to capture anything!

They offer to capture something for me, but I need to do this on my own! I want to capture something new, but the only things I can see are delibirds fluttering around in the trees and little swinub scurrying around in the snow. I don't want either of those, even if swinub do evolve into something with massive tusks. I want something different that's awesome!

Maybe I'll just catch something when I go to Kanto. It'll be undoubtedly easier than over here. All it means I have to do is beat Roark and then I can get a boat over there. I wouldn't mind something like a butterfree. Maybe I could get a ditto and then cause loads of mayhem by having it transform into loads of different things!

It's an awesome plan, I decide.

**-O-O-O-**

I wake up to the ground beneath me rumbling.

I shoot up and glance around, my hair stuck to my face and Ali already awake and pressing her hands against the floor. Kiki's out with us in my tent, scowling and hissing things I can't quite understand.

"Must have been something big passing nearby," Ali assumes. "We might as well get back to-"

- the ground rumbles again. I jump out of my sleeping bag and thrash against its stupid binds. There's something big out there, making the ground rumble and it has to be nearby! Who knows what it's going to do!

I fall out of my tent and hiss as the cold air slaps my face. Jerry's already out of his tent, Jim by his side and hooting at something in the dark. I can't see far enough – all I can see is nothing but a black expanse covered by the occasional swirl of snow.

"What was that?" I ask him.

He shrugs and crouches in front of me. "I'm not sure. Are you alright?"

I nod. "Yeah. Tired, but I'm fine." Kiki comes out of the tent with Ali, both of them looking sleepy and confused. Nathan appears out of the tent he was sharing with Jerry, nervously looking over his shoulder as he does so.

"This place is meant to be haunted," he says. "There was a big abomasnow here ages ago that rampaged through this route. It killed a few people and there's a rumour that its ghost is meant to haunt this place."

"That's stupid," Jerry says quickly. "If it was an abomasnow, it would be coming from the trees, not from underground."

Ali looks like she's about to say something when the ground trembles again. I lose my footing and end up face-first in the snow, spluttering madly as I try to get it out. The ground underneath me vibrates and I swear it feels like it's actually got a beating heart!

"I don't like this," I mumble as I get back to my feet. "What's doing this?"

"I'm not sure," Jerry admits. He puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me against him. "Just make sure you stay near me, alright?"

I nod, reach out for Ali and grab her by the hand. She looks really pale and scared and I feel exactly the same way. I don't know what's happening but I know that something is out there, under the ground and waiting to do something!

The night turns strangely quiet.

And then a _colossal_ roar pierces it!

I can feel it all the way down to my bones and my ears still vibrate even after it finishes. Jim is screeching at something in the dark and Kiki is making frantic gestures at us all.

"It's the abomasnow ghost!" Nathan cries. "It's coming to eat us!"

He panics and runs in the darkness before we can stop him. There's another roar as we shout after him and all of a sudden, the ground bursts open and showers us all with snow and dirt. Nathan screams as he looks up at the monster. I see a flash of yellow eyes in the sky and hear another roar, louder than before. Nathan screams again and suddenly the ground bursts open underneath him and something swallows him whole!

I barely even notice that I'm screaming until my throat starts to hurt. The snow is sprayed red with blood, _Nathan's_ blood and I can hear the monster _chewing_ and _snapping_ and _slurping_ Nathan!

Jim screeches and lights up the sky with fire. In the orange glow, I see the towering monsters for what they are.

A pair of hungry steelix, mouths coated red in blood.

I don't know which one of us screams the loudest. All I know is that one moment I'm there, staring at the angry, hungry faces of two steelix and the next Elizabeth is underneath me and its running as fast as it can over the snow. Jerry's holding onto me and Ali both, directing Elizabeth to run faster and faster and it's not fastenough because the monsters are close enough behind us that I can feel their hot, stinking breath on my neck!

Jerry shoves a poké ball in my hands and I only dimly become aware of the fact it's Kiki's. Mandy's is still in my pocket and I see Jerry stashing Jim's poké ball away in his jeans. Ali's swearing frantically, calling the steelix all sorts of names as they roar behind us. Their roars sound like screeching metal being torn apart and my ears scream each time they roar. Blood trickles from my ears and I start to not be able to hear anything over the thundering of my heart or Jerry's shouts for Elizabeth to _hurry, hurry, hurry!_

One of the steelix roars and Elizabeth screeches as the floor underneath it disappears. We're sent flying into the snow randomly and I can't see anyone nearby! I search for Jerry and Ali both but I find nothing but darkness and the roaring sounds of monsters hidden somewhere in the dark where they might be eating my brother right now!

Out of nowhere something swoops down and scoops me up. The ground disappears beneath my feet and I scream and scream and scream!

"Stop struggling!" Ali shouts above the sounds of insect wings. I look up and I can barely see her face above mine. She's biting her lip and behind her I see something dark and with wings, hissing frantically as we slowly come closer and closer to the ground.

"This is _not_ the time to tell me to lose weight!" Ali screams at the thing carrying it. I guess it has to be her heracross because it's the only thing that can fly but if we're here that means Jerry has to still be on the ground somewhere fighting off the monsters!

Another roar echoes behind us and we both scream. Hot breath washes over us and we're sent spiralling round and around in the air until I'm sure I'm going to be sick. Ali swears again and suddenly we're in the snow again, Ali coughing and her heracross hissing wildly at something in the dark.

"Where's Jerry?" she shouts.

"I don't know! I thought you'd found him!"

"I could only find you!" Her hands grab me in the dark and lead me back towards her heracross. I can only see it, just barely. It looks as terrified as I feel, quickly looking in every direction and clicking wildly. "We need to get out of here!" Ali shouts.

"No!" I scream and shove her hands away. "Not without Jerry!" I see a flash of fire in the distance and the looming silhouette above it. My stomach drops and I know its Jerry fighting against one of the monsters.

"Jerry!" I scream into the distance and try to run towards it.

Ali's hands grab me and force me back and her face appears in mine screaming, "It's too dangerous!"

"I don't care!" I scream. I release Mandy and grab it by the feet. "Mandy! Fly me over there!" It tries, squawking madly but I don't ever leave the ground. "Mandy! Fly me!" I scream but no matter how much I try, I can't get into the air and Mandy's too small and I can see where Jerry might be dying and I can't reach it in time!

"She's too small!" Ali tells me. "She can't fly you there!"

"I don't care! He's my brother and he's fighting those things and _there's one right behind you!_"

Ali screams and turns just in time to catch the flash of yellow eyes and blood-stained teeth. Her heracross appears out of nowhere and slams into the steelix's mouth hard enough to leave a dent. Her heracross punches it in the eye and the steelix screams louder than I've ever heard and with enough force to knock me off my feet as blood trickles down from where its eye used to be.

"Nina!" Ali screams. "Get away!"

But her heracross doesn't listen and punches the steelix in the face again. Dents appear all over it as Nina punches it harder and harder and suddenly the steelix roars, leaps and Nina disappears between its jaws!

"Nina!" Ali screams and goes to fight the steelix herself. "Give her back you overgrown bastard!" She throws snowballs and everything she can find at it as the steelix looks like it's trying to chew what remains. Except there can't be much that remains, because I saw what little there was left of Nathan and how quickly he just vanished.

But then against all the odds the steelix slowly opens its mouth and there is Nina, arms' shaking as it holds the steelix's jaws apart. Ali cries in relief and recalls her pokémon instantly, but that just leaves a hungry steelix facing us down again.

"Run!" Ali shouts and I don't need to be told twice. I recall Mandy and try to run, but the snow is our enemy because it's up to our waists and stops us from being able to mouth fast at all. I can hear the steelix behind us, slowly weaving around and trying to trap us in its long, snakey body. I see flashes of orange in the distance again and see the other steelix slowly getting closer and closer to Jerry. I see something floating around nearby him and flashes of purple fire and know he has Annie out, but I don't know if he has anything else out and alive to fight the monster.

The steelix around me roars once more and I see that all around me is its body, trapping us in and ready to kill us both. It looms above us, one eye gleaming in the moonlight and its mouth opens, raining blobs of saliva as big as me around us.

Ali has her pokémon out, already trying to move the snake. But it's too big and her pokémon are too small because even with five fighters trying to pick it up and move it, they still can't manage to shift it more than a few inches. I throw Kiki's ball out in front of me and scream, "In the eyes! In the eyes!" before Kiki's even fully formed.

It shoots hundreds of tiny little seeds out instantly that hammer over the steelix's body and bounce harmless back to the ground, sprouting in mid-air. The steelix roars as some land in its eye and even more sink into its open mouth and start to strangle it from the inside. It thrashes wildly as roots spout all along its insides and its tail shatters the floor and covers the ground around in in craters.

"Move!" Ali screams and grabs me by the collar. I barely have time to recall Kiki as her primeape throws me over the shoulder and sprints off into the distance. Ali's being carried by her sawk and her pignite is racing in front of us both, completely ablaze and melting all the snow around us.

"I can't leave Jerry!" I scream and try to move on the primeape. It holds me tight and I pull at its fur to try and get loose. It screeches but doesn't even let me go as it continues to run further and further away from the flames that are getting shorter and weaker in the distance.

"Let me go!" I shout. "I can't leave him! Turn back! Turn back!"

"It's too dangerous!" Ali shouts. The steelix thunders along behind us again, blind and dying but still giving chase. Ali swears and ducks as her pignite shoots balls of fire mid-run at it, but somehow the steelix knows they're coming and swerves around them all. "It's getting closer!"

I fumble around in my bag and reach for something, _anything_ that might help. I find a poké ball and throw it as hard as I can at the steelix, but it just smacks it away with its tail and keeps on chasing after us. Ali leaps onto my idea and throws as many poké balls as she can at the steelix, but it swats away each one of them before any of them can even so much as get near to it.

Finally one opens up and bathes it completely in red light. We take the few seconds it's stunned to race away as fast as we can, but in no time at all the glow has gone and the steelix is chasing us again and belching green fire!

"It's not stopping!" I scream. Green fire explodes over my head and launches straight into Jude and knocks the pignite completely off its feet and only Ali's quick timing stops it from becoming the steelix's latest meal as we pass it. The monster roars again and I don't know how it's still managing to chase us when there's leech seeds growing out of its mouth but it is and it's going to eat us and I'm getting further and further away from Jerry and he might be dead already because there's no fire in the sky anymore and-

-the steelix behind us roars suddenly and stops moving. We slow down but don't stop running as I see the steelix slowly float into the sky, covered in a blue glow that crackles and sparks with visible energy. It roars and twists in the air but then there's a sudden, sickening _snap_ as its body twists all the way round in two different directions and it drops to the floor, unmoving and not breathing.

I get to my feet shakily and find Ali thrown somewhere nearby from where the steelix hit the floor. She recalls her primeape and leans against Cap for support as she stares at what's left of the steelix and swears under her breath.

Something moves atop the steelix. I flinch and reach for Mandy's poké ball when a little ball of light starts to float around the figure and illuminates it for us to see.

Creepy-cloak lady stands atop the steelix corpse, cloak fluttering in the wind and her jynx stood beside her.

"Wait here," she says and vanishes in a flash of blue light. I see the light shine in the distance, somewhere near the silhouette of the other steelix. There's flashes of light but no sound as I see the steelix taken down in short, staggered displays of power. Once it's over, the blue light shines in front of us again and Candice is stood atop the steelix once more, her jynx beside her and in front of her and most importantly of all; Jerry.

I scream his name as I race towards him and throw myself at him. He grunts and hisses as I hug him but I don't care because he's alive and even though he's bloody and bruised and something feels like it's broken, he's still alive and the steelix are dead and they're not coming back!

Candice jumps down from the steelix and floats down slowly to the floor, her cape trailing behind her. Even now, her face is hidden in the shadows of her hood. She looks at us each in turn and then back to her jynx before she taps the side of the dead steelix.

"These escaped Snowpoint Temple several days ago, which was why you found me down there," she said, and even though I could see she wasn't looking, I knew she was talking directly to Jerry and I. "You're lucky. The cold slows them down considerably. Otherwise I dare say you'd have been dead and digested by the time I got here."

None of us say anything. Jerry's still hugging me and Ali's with us and after an awkward moment I just drag her with us and hug her because we're all alive and we're not dead and the monsters are!

Candice looks back at us and cocks her head. "I was too late to save all of you, however."

I remember Nathan disappearing under the shroud of snow and dust and the way the steelix had so effortlessly ate it. Jerry stiffens at her remark but says nothing and Ali trembles with silent tears but I just feel nothing more than the thundering of my heart that still won't calm down.

"There's a small village nearby with a medical centre," Candice says. "I shall teleport you all there so that you may recover. In the future, I recommend you don't attempt to be snack food."

I get the feeling like she's smirking as she reaches out and touches Jerry's shoulder. She grabs her jynx and everything vanishes in a shroud of blue.

**-O-O-O-**

It takes nearly three weeks for us and our pokémon to recover from everything. Most of Ali's pokémon had broken bones – her heracross had both arms broken and a twisted ankle – and Jerry's pokémon had a number of injuries too. Jerry himself had a broken arm and bruised ribs, whilst Ali had a sprained wrist. I was told that I had the beginnings of hypothermia and had to stay as warm as possible for ages whilst Kiki had to rest for a while from overexertion. I still felt like I got off easily compared to the others.

When we finally leave, most of the stronger blizzards have stopped. We walk from the little village atop one of Mount Coronet's peaks, called Frostback, to Eterna city. It doesn't take as long as I thought it would, but we still move slowly if only because of our own injuries and those of our pokémon.

Ali spends her time trying to train her heracross to be able to fly with more weight attached, whilst Jerry tries to train Elizabeth to run just as fast whilst carrying heavy weight. The doctors in the village told us we were lucky, because steelix become slower in the cold, which meant that even though our pokémon were slower because of the weight, they were still just that little bit faster.

They seem to have taken it harder than me and spend every moment training their pokémon to be able to move quickly, should they need to again. I try and train Mandy to fly me somewhere, but yet again it doesn't seem to work at all. They tell me I have to wait until Mandy's bigger until it can fly me anywhere, but I'm sure it can carry me because I'm not all _that_ big.

When the snow finally starts to part for brown earth and bright green grass, however, we start to relax. Days before we even reach Eterna we can see the statue they have to the Sinnoh pokégods – bronze sculptures of The Dialga and The Palkia wrapped underneath the twisting body of The Giratina. The sight of it reminds of me of the steelix and I spend each day trying my best to not look at it and focus on something else.

Finally we come across civilisation once more. Ali talks about how she wants a hot shower whilst Jerry goes on about the food he wants to eat. I'll just be happy never to have to see another giant pokémon that wants to use me as a toothpick ever again.

Eterna splits into two distinct parts; old and new. We can see the new before we even get there, with huge metallic buildings that threaten the skies and shine brilliantly under the light. The older parts are pretty, with stone buildings made of white marble and black granite that glisten and from above, reminds me of a chess board.

The strangest thing about Eterna we notice, however, is the distinct lack of people.

"I don't like this," Jerry says as we pass the sign welcoming us to Eterna. Except, it's not attached to the billboard anymore, instead crumpled on the floor and most of the letters have been rubbed off. Ali walks towards it, nudges it with her foot and screams as a little sentret pokes out and scurries away. We laugh nervously as our hearts slowly start to return to normal, but then I see the huge black letters someone has painted across the smiling face of a cherrim-flower.

_**Turn back.**_

I decide that the sign has to know exactly what it's talking about and agree with it. Jerry tells me it has to be someone pulling a prank, though as we get into the city limits, we see rubbish lying on the floor, cars left in the streets and the remains of clothes and pokémon collars left everywhere – even atop bus stops.

"I feel like we're in a horror movie," Ali says as she lets Cap out. It grunts as it looks around, picks up the remains of what seems to have once been a dress and hisses, throwing it as far away as it can.

Jerry lets out Elizabeth as I call out Mandy. We make our way slowly through the empty streets with only the rustle of plastic bags and the never-ending silence as our only company.

Finally we round a corner and see people.

All lying on the floor.

Dead.

It seems like there's been a war in the street. Blood paints everything and I can see bits of body parts on the street that I'm sure have to stay inside the body. A few skinny pokémon lie on the floor, equally as dead and everything stinks worse than anything I could ever imagine and I have to fight the urge to be sick.

"I think the sign was right," Ali says. "We should leave."

I agree quickly, though as I turn around I see something move in an alleyway. I point it out and we slowly move around the street. The cars lay abandoned in the middle of the road, most with the keys still in the ignition. Most are stained with blood.

Ali's right; I feel like I'm in a horror film.

Finally we hear what sounds like an actual person. We find someone hidden behind the body of a broken red car, huddled over the remains of what I think was a woman. I hear _slurps_ and _snaps_ and I'm reminded instantly of the steelix and the way it ate Nathan.

"Hello?" Jerry asks nervously.

It's at that moment the person looks up and I realise it isn't a person. Its skin is sunken and purple, covered in horrible blotches. Fangs seem to come from its mouth and there's a huge hole in the side of its head. It stumbles to its feet and moans, dropping the remains of the woman's arm back to the floor.

These people are dead, I realise.

And Eterna is full of _zombies_.


	9. Shadows

_Dear Diary,_

_What is the afterlife? I have heard it mentioned so often, but there is no physical proof of such a thing. Is it like love? Many of the people I asked could not answer me, even as they crossed the threshold towards this mysterious place._

_I do not like taking things on faith. Faith is too much like trust, and mine has been shattered completely._

_I pose myself with a new conundrum; how do I prove the existence of an afterlife, or a lack thereof?_

…

_So many problems, such limited resources to investigate with._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Shadows|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

I know zombies aren't real. I mean, I've always been told that by my parents and _really, _the idea of dead things coming back to life is something that even I can believe isn't actually going to happen.

The only problem is that it _is_ happening.

My parents always told me these things can't exist. Of course, my parents also told me the creepy little girls in white that appear on films don't unnaturally play jump-rope whilst singing creepy nursery rhymes.

So I'm two-for-two on proving my parents wrong and somehow, _I told you so_ doesn't seem like the easiest thing to say anymore.

Death lies all around me. I'm aware of it. I can feel it in the air – I can _taste_ it with every breath! From the corners of my eyes I can see the scattered bits of what used to be people and the smears of blood they've left all across the roads and the buildings.

And in front of me stands the living dead, purple skin, covered in blotches, tiny little fangs and with a hole the size of my fist in the side of its head.

The _thing _stares at us in as much surprise as we stare at it. An arm drops from its mouth, stained red with blood and what may have once been nail varnish. It hits the floor with a wet _plop_ and suddenly the world seems to start all over again.

The thing _screams _in a way that I've never heard before – not from even the steelix because somehow this is far scarier because the thing trying to eat me was a human! Its mouth stretches and stretches and I can see all the way down its throat!

Somewhere in the distance, I hear footsteps.

It's enough that finally, we all seem to realise just what might be going on.

"Holy foongus," Ali says.

"I'm dreaming," Jerry mutters.

Whereas I simply scream. I scream and I scream because the thing used to be human and its eating dead people and now it's looking at us and _oh my god_ it shouldn't be making those noises and it's going to eat us too and-

-Ali's sawk decides it's had enough as it picks up a piece of an abandoned car and _smashes_ it into the thing's face! The zombie goes down with a big _crack_ sound and it falls against the road hard enough that I can hear the crack like it happens right next to me. It moans and reaches for Cap, but Cap picks up the car piece and _smashes_ it into the zombie-thing's head until there's nothing left but a pile of goo and _bits_ that once used to be brains.

"I…" Jerry says nervously. "_Really_?"

Ali shrugs. "Hey, you're supposed to aim for the head, aren't you?"

"B-but," he stutters and waves his hands at the remains of the thing. "What if it was human?"

"It had a hole in the side of its head," I say. "It was the size of my hand, Jerry! It can't be alive with something that _huge_ missing from its head!"

He frowns as he looks at me, almost like he's uncertain as to what I'm doing there. Then he starts to try and move in front of me; attempting to shield me from the sights of leaking spleens and already-dry patches of blood. I don't tell him that I've already seen them. I let him stand in front of me, because that stops me from seeing everything. If I can't see it, I can pretend that it isn't happening.

Mandy starts squawking from atop my shoulder. I try to slam my hands down around its beak, but it hops atop my head, crows some more and then jumps to my other shoulder.

The sound echoes all around us. I don't like it. I want nothing more than to run, hide and pretend that Eterna doesn't exist.

Jerry's trying to coax Elizabeth into letting us jump onto it within a moment's notice. The dodrio doesn't look happy, however, and keeps hissing at the piles of bodies on the floor. Its left head pokes the ground around a corpse as the middle head scans the surroundings and the right head _licks_ the corpse's exposed leg.

"Let's leave," Ali says, breathing deeply. "Let's get out of here, pretend we never saw anything and then ring the police or hazard control or even _Umbrella_ – as long as we get out of here now!"

"Good plan," I say. Because really, why would anyone want to stay in here, where they're likely to have their face eaten or something like that?

"But what if there's someone alive in here?" Jerry asks.

"If they were alive, do you really think everywhere would be so abandoned?" Ali hisses. "This isn't a movie. This isn't a videogame. We're not going to be able to eat random food lying on the floor to heal ourselves if one of those things bites us! We leave. Now." She grabs him by the top of his arm and drags him away from the street. I follow quickly, Mandy on my shoulder again, Elizabeth following behind us closely. Cap clears the way in front of us, grunting to itself as it lifts up heavy objects and tests their weight as weapons.

Jerry sighs and grabs his arm from Ali. "I think-"

The sound of snapping bones _cracks_ from down the road.

"-That we should probably steer clear of sounds like that," he finishes.

I try to huddle myself in the middle of everyone. I'm reminded of the steelix eating Nathan and how I shouldn't even know what the sounds of people's bones snapping as they're being eaten sounds like.

I see something at the end of the road. It's moving, faster than a shuffle but slower than a walk. It's hunched over at an unnatural angle. Its skin seems purple. Bubbles of something thick and black drip from its mouth.

_It's missing an arm._

"Let's go," Ali says.

We turn around and find another one _running _towards us.

Ali screams louder than me. Jerry louder still. Cap throws the remains of a paving stone at the zombie, but it's faster than we thought. It zips to the side, stone smashing against the floor behind it and it comes at us, growling and snarling and drooling as it _tries to eat us_!

Elizabeth screeches, leaps into the air and kicks it away. The thing lands in a broken heap a few paces away from us, still growling, now bleeding and with a steady army of shadows creeping up around it.

"Jerry," I mumble as I cling to him. He doesn't say anything. Instead he just wraps an arm around my shoulders and draws me in close. Even Mandy doesn't protest as it gets a little squashed. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to hide away – even see more dead legends, so long as they're not coming back to life and eating things!

"Stay still," he whispers to me. His hands tighten just a fraction before he screams, "Elizabeth, waste it!"

The hairs on the back of my neck prickle as the air starts to crackle. The dodrio stands nearly motionless, save for the massive collections of energy in each of its beaks. I'm almost certain I hear someone scream, "Stop!" before there's a deafening _boom_ that sends my hair flying everywhere.

My ears ring in the aftermath. The world seems like its spinning round and round. Where the zombie was, only ash remains. Little flecks of zombie flutter down from the sky, drifting around the fissure in the floor and the partially-vaporised car.

There's a moment's peace that hangs in the air.

Then something _moans_ and breaks it completely.

"_Urrggghhh…"_

I have to be imagining this, because only in my weird and wacky brain would dead things be able to moan and try to eat people.

"_Uurrrghhh…"_

I wince as I looked at the thing shambling towards us. It might have been human once. It looks like one of the dinner ladies at my old school – except if maybe she'd been served for lunch. Her insides are all exposed and I'm only sure it used to be a woman because there's long hair that sticks to the remains of its face.

"You're one ugly son-of-a-bitch," Ali comments.

"Get down!"

Naturally, I completely ignore the random request. I watch as a woman races over the top of an abandoned car, leaps from the boot and _smacks_ the zombie across the street with a baseball bat! Little bits of blood and gore flick everywhere, but I don't care if there's any on me because that was so _cool!_

The woman's older than Jerry and I put together. Her clothes are falling apart and her ginger hair is styled into a pixie cut, with a long streak of green through the side. She sighs as she taps her bat against the floor and slides chunks off the wood.

It seems as if she notices us for the first time. "Hey," she says, with a smile that doesn't meet her eyes. A huge scorpion pokémon follows behind her. Instead of running across the car like she did, the pokémon simply tramples across it. Metal screeches underneath it, but the thing pays it no attention at all.

It's hard to not look at the pokémon. It's purple and easily as big as me. Large fangs drip slobber onto the floor that dissolves the road and the remains of zombies. It hisses at the woman, coils its long stingy-tail around itself and chitters something I'll never have any hope of understanding.

"I'm Ryan," the woman says before we can even stutter. "Welcome to Eterna's own little apocalypse."

Jerry seems to be the first of us to recover. "How… what…" he says stupidly. Finally he shakes his head, introduces us and just _stares_ at the woman. "What's going on here?"

She shrugs. "Zombies. Well, that one was, at least," she says, pointing with her bat towards the one she beat to its second-death. "That one you vaporised?" She waves her bat in a circle towards the large crater Elizabeth left behind. "That wasn't a zombie."

"It was trying to _eat_ us," Ali points out. "It was eating someone else and it looked _dead_. How is that not a zombie?"

The woman sighs and shoulders her bat. "Lots of things to explain, too unsafe to stand around saying them. If you want me to explain things, you're going to have to run and chat, kids. If not, then feel free to find the nearest exit and hope that the gym leaders haven't blockaded everything off."

"Why would they do that?" I ask.

"To stop everything from spreading," Jerry tells me. "When there's a really bad disease or something in some towns, they quarantine the entire area."

"It happens in Kanto a lot," Ali says. "Around Lavender, because of the Tower. But that doesn't explain what's going on here or why people are trying to _eat each other._"

Ryan turns away from us and gestures towards the city. "Welcome to the Feeding Ground. Not everything you see is a zombie. We – _I_ – discovered a few things about them. Suffice it to say, if they've got wounds that look fatal, they're a zombie. If not, they're not. Sound simple?"

Jerry frowns. "Yes, but-"

"-No buts!" Ryan hisses. She points down the road, to where more things are crawling over the remains of people, pokémon and places. "Those things coming? They're zombies. Feel free to kill them. But maybe we should have a quick demonstration first, alright?" She taps her bat against the side of the big scorpion. "Drapes. Work your magic, would you?"

The thing hisses at her. Even though I can't understand it, I recognise the disdain in the thing's face. Yet even still, it listens to her. It uncoils itself, stretches its tail towards the heavens and growls. I feel a chill pass through the area. My arms erupt into goose bumps. Night seems to come forth from the scorpion and wash over the world.

As it passes over the zombies, something weird happens, however.

They scream like they're being physically wounded. The screams seem to go on forever. Their eyes start bleeding – those that can still bleed. The rest wail and shriek until they start literally _falling apart._

I watch in fascinated horror as the bodies of people start to fall away, limb by limb, nose, ears and then eyes. Jerry tries to shield me from it – I manage to keep watching. Even Mandy seems transfixed. Ali is swearing under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear. I don't need to look at her to know that Cap is holding her protectively – just like Jerry is with me. Elizabeth is actually _growling_ at the sight, though it makes no movement to go any closer.

Even with no body underneath them, the people's heads are still moving. They still scream in pain, even though I know for sure they shouldn't be able to, considering their jaws aren't even attached to their heads.

Then something even stranger happens.

Clouds of purple and black start to drift out of the people's open bodies. The clouds start to become a fog, which slowly starts to seep through everything, over the entire landscape and crawling in through any space it can find.

Hundreds of evil red eyes open in the fog.

I recognise the sound as my own gasping shriek. My stomach doesn't so much drop as run away screaming.

"Those are your zombies," Ryan says, pointing with her bat. "Drapes, if you would?"

The thing hisses again, but it obeys. Night bursts from its very skin and washes over the cloud of evil eyes. They _moan_ and _hiss_ and I even hear whispers of _"Doom"_ and _"Destroy"_ coming from them.

Then abruptly, they all disappear into the shadows and leave us in the abandoned street, with little bits and pieces of zombies scattered around us.

Ryan looks at us, her single earring spinning on its axis. "That's how you deal with these creatures."

**-O-O-O-**

I sigh to myself from our new little hideout. Ryan led us to an abandoned apartment block and made sure we followed her up to the top. There's no one left in the building, which makes it just the slightest bit creepier.

I hum as I make my way through a person's forgotten kitchen. There's something in the fridge that looks like it might soon be able to start speaking. I don't know what it is, I don't know what it _was_ and I certainly don't want to ever have to see something as gross and furry anywhere near food ever again.

Ali's busy barricading the door. Cap helps her and they converse in whispers so quiet I'm unable to hear anything they're saying. Jerry's watching the window, staring out onto the street as if he expects the things to suddenly develop the power of flight. He's recalled Elizabeth and instead Annie floats around him, making eerie banette-noises.

Mandy busies itself eating a raw steak that was left on the kitchen counter. It's going slightly mouldy and fills the entire room with a really disgusting smell, but the vullaby just seems to treat the mould like nothing more than salt.

I walk back into the main room and see the massive pokémon – a drapion, as my pokédex told me – scuttle into the shadows of a bedroom. Ryan remains by one of the windows, using her bloody bat to lift the curtains and watch the world outside.

"So what was that evil cloud?" I ask. My voice cracks a little where I haven't used it in a while and I wince.

Ryan looks at me, then at both Jerry and Ali. They all seem to have some idea about what it was, though I know for sure Ryan has to be certain. She's the one that seems like she's been battling them for a while – she _has_ to know! She even knew that they weren't zombies!

Ryan shrugs as she sits down on a worn green chair. "Pokémon," she says simply. "Eterna has miles upon miles of forests nearby. Said forests also happen to conceal a forgotten mansion that's supposed to be haunted. The guy who owned it murdered his family and then killed himself or something. Either way, it's supposed to be haunted by Mr Slicey himself or one of his dead children.

"And because it's supposed to be haunted, loads of ghostly pokémon tend to show up and hang around the place." She looks up at me and offers a tiny smile which I _think_ is meant to reassure me. "Something's disturbed the pokémon in there or just changed their lifestyles. The town isn't plagued by zombies – it's haunted by gastly possessing people."

I have to search just what a gastly is on my pokédex. It says gastly are poisonous, which I guess explains why everyone looks like they've been eating rattata-poison. I still can't quite understand why there are loads of ghosts wandering around the town and ask as much.

Ryan shrugs. I see that Ali and Jerry have moved closer, finding the conversation interesting enough to draw their attention. "As far as I'm aware, most gastly tend to eat rotting flesh, scavenger-style. Not too dissimilar from your own pokémon," she says, pointing at Mandy. "Given that they're possessing people and using them to eat other, non-possessed people, I'd say that the gastlys are just pigging out and using the town as an all you can eat buffet."

Jerry frowns. "But there's not that many people left for them to eat, surely?"

"Which means only one of two things," Ryan says. "Either they gorge on Eterna and retreat back to their mansion, or…"

"They move on elsewhere and feast on the rest of Sinnoh," Ali whispers. "I swear I played a game like this once."

"How did you beat it?" I ask her.

She pulls at her ear. "You had to find a shotgun blessed by Arceus."

"Oh," I say. There's no hope of finding something like _that_, then. "What can we do then? Can we run away?"

Ryan shakes her head. "I don't know how you guys managed to get into the town, but it's under a full quarantine. The League have showed up and blockaded it at all the borders towards every over town or escape route. If they think you're possessed, they'll kill you on the spot. People have tried flying out, but they just get shot down by fighter-charizards."

Well, both of those options _suck_.

"Roark's in here somewhere," Ryan says as she gets back up. "They haven't closed off the forest, because they've figured out that everything seems to be coming from there. The only problem is that well… the gastly came from the forest. So wandering in there is pretty much the same as walking into a gyarados' mouth and closing it shut behind you."

"So what do we _actually_ do to get out of here?" Jerry asks. "Can we not just go back out of Eterna the way we came in?"

"You could, I suppose," Ryan says. "But is it going to be safe? More importantly; is the way out even going to be still open?" She sighs and shakes her head. "I'm afraid the only things we can do now are either hole up somewhere and try to wait it out, or take the charge, attack these stupid gastly and figure out just what's causing them to go so crazy."

Ali punches her hands together. "I say we take the fight to them. After all," – she smiles like an insane person – "_'I ain't afraid of no ghosts.'"_

Jerry and Ryan groan as one.

**-O-O-O-**

It's quiet outside.

I would say it's too quiet, but that would be stupid considering my feet are still making noises every time they hit the floor and the distant sounds of buildings creaking in the wind and screams of people running for their lives or being eaten drift to my ears.

I don't like Eterna, I decide.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I just don't like Sinnoh.

I take a deep breath and try to calm myself a little. Jerry and Ali are with me. That's some comfort. Ryan's gone off to who-knows-where, leaving us with the message that she's going to beat up some dead things and then find the nearest adult store.

I didn't understand what she meant by it, though Jerry and Ali clearly did. They both went bright red as Ryan proclaimed she'd gone too long without it and that she was going to have some fun in this world, even if it was just by a toy. I thought she meant a box of Lego or something, but apparently that's not what she meant.

Though no one's telling me what she did mean.

"Why are we even doing this?" I moan as the trees grow taller and taller. I can see the darkness waiting between them, promising me that I'll meet more of the creepy ghosts that happen to be possessing people. "We should be leaving!"

Ali's the one to squeeze my shoulder and smile at me. "If we get to this mansion, we can find Roark. With them, we might be able to figure out what's going on. I don't like it much either, but would you prefer to kick ass and win that way, or just hide in a corner like some little girl?"

I nearly point out to her that I _am_ a little girl, but I can't say that I don't want to try and fight my way out. Craig disappeared and I couldn't do anything. Nathan got _eaten_ in front of me and all I could do was scream and run!

So this time, I actually want to do something.

Mandy tweets from my other shoulder. Ryan had the massive drapion try and teach it the basics of shooting blasts of darkness at things. Unfortunately, whereas the drapion can make night wash over day, Mandy can only manage something not too dissimilar from a gob of black goo.

Apparently Mandy will learn how to use it properly, in time. The only problem is that I don't think we have much time before all the gastly-monsters come and try to _eat _us.

"C'mon Squirt," Jerry says to me. Out of nowhere he picks me up and lets me ride piggyback. He's got Elizabeth carrying his bag like some sort of pack-dodrio and Annie floats around us, cackling in sounds that remind me of the haunting moans of the zombies.

But somehow, that's familiar. What's strange is Jerry suddenly treating me like he did when I was little. I shrug to myself and marvel that he has to be so much stronger than I thought he was – he's carrying me, my bag and Mandy all at once! Ali just smiles at us both and leads us towards the woods; her heracross hovering just a few steps in front of her, hissing occasional things at the encroaching darkness.

"Keep an eye out Squirt," Jerry tells me, "you're higher than all of us now. Watch for where the things are coming from and let us know."

"Alright." I watch as the town slowly gets taken back by nature. Buildings and concrete roads turn into grassy paths and massive trees. The leaves of the trees are all slowly turning red and orange. It's kind of pretty, in a strange way. I mean, Unova's in summer at the moment – it's weird to see that Sinnoh's in autumn.

It seems like I blink and suddenly we're in the middle of the woods. Some trees are bare, some still have leaves, but they all have pale brown trunks that stretch up to the skies further than I can see. Aside from us and our pokémon, there's no sound anywhere in the forests.

Cap finds the remains of a nest of pokémon. Ali says they look like they were eaten. She doesn't let me look at them.

I see them when we're walking away.

They look like they've been eaten by _people_.

Raw.

"I can't see anything," I say. There's no pokémon in the trees. The woods should be alive with the songs of starly and kricketot, according to my pokédex. The woods seem as abandoned as the nearby town.

"What do you think, Nina?" Ali asks her pokémon. The heracross clicks and flies up to the trees. It seems to be trying to investigate everything, though with both its arms still in plaster casts it's clearly having a hard time. From below, Cap says something that Nina seems to understand. They talk for a moment before Nina descends and manages to relate all the information back to Ali.

"Nothing," Ali translates. "There's no pokémon or anything that could be considered living around here. Apparently it seems like all the zombies are in the town, still feasting on everyone. Humans must taste nicer or something."

"Thanks for that," Jerry says. Even though I'm not looking at him, I still somehow know he's grimacing. "Any tips on where to find this mansion?"

Ali spins and points forwards. "Nina said that it looks like there's a building ahead. Might be what we're looking for, might not."

"Or it could just belong to some hermit who lives in the woods and shouldn't be trusted around people."

Ali pulls a face I don't quite understand. "Yeah. There's also that problem."

Again they seem to move around me, like I'm some prize that's worth defending no matter the cost. I'm not completely clueless – I know all about avoiding weird people that live in woods and have collections of skinned buneary outside their huts. I did have normal parents, after all. I don't know whether to be annoyed at them both or somewhat happy they're protecting me so much.

Realistically, I decide that maybe I should debate my feelings _after_ we've escaped zombie-land.

The woods are strange. I can see signs of life around me, but at the same time, I can't hear or see any _actual_ life. I see bits of bark chipped off nearby trees – it looks like someone pulled it off with their fingers. On the exposed tree are streaks of blood, like someone was holding onto it as they were pulled away.

The floor is littered with little bits of torn clothes and random objects hidden under the cover of leaves. I try to guess how many people must have come through here and forgotten or lost they stuff, but realising that they've most likely been eaten stops me from thinking much about that.

It doesn't seem to take long to find the building Ali's pokémon were talking about. It's so much bigger than my house – bigger than the local pokémon _gym_ back home! Whoever lived there had to have been rich! Although the windows are almost all broken and the white paint covering the outside looks kind of yellow, the house still looks really cool, in the old and majestic sort of way.

The air is still all around us, though. I slide down from Jerry's back and stare up at the house. I half expect a flash of lightning to burst into life above it, or even thunder to rip through the air.

There's nothing but silence, though.

Ali gulps. "This is the place. I think. It matches what that Ryan girl said."

"Yeah," Jerry says. He frowns at the place, like he's trying to develop x-ray vision or something. "Ryan said that she last saw Roark headed this way, right?"

I nod and say nothing. The house is _creepy_ and even though it makes all the hairs on my arms stand up, I still want to just stand there watching it. The shadows of nearby trees creepy over the house, almost like they're ancient, knobbly old witches that are seeking children to eat.

I shudder at the thought.

Then I see a shadow _move_ behind one of the windows.

"There!" I hiss, even though I want to scream and run in the other direction. "I saw something! In there!" I practically shriek, pointing at one of the in-tact windows on the third floor.

Ali groans, "It would be on the top floor, wouldn't it?"

"Would you rather it be the basement?" Jerry asks.

"Point."

It takes forever for us to actually work up the courage to approach the mansion's front door. I expect there to be some ancient old skeleton-butler that opens the door for us, but instead there's nothing but a few cobwebs hanging over the door.

The door itself is surprisingly clean, though. It's almost like people have been here recently.

Of course, the smears of blood on either side of the door also say as much.

"Stick close to me, alright?" Jerry says as he pulls me towards him. Mandy trills from on my shoulder and is answered by a hiss from Elizabeth. I don't know what to say, so instead I remain silent as Jerry pushes the door open.

It _creaks_ with such an ancient noise I'm actually slightly afraid it might fall off. It manages to swing back, however, and nothing happens other than a little bit of dust at the back of the gloomy hall aimlessly spiralling out of control.

The hall itself is _huge_ though. Even on my tiptoes, I'm still not even half the height of the doors! There are ancient-looking chandeliers that hang from the ceiling, lit with candles that burn bright _purple_ and drip bits of bright white wax onto the floor.

"Well…" Ali says, "this isn't creepy at all."

There's a chill in the air inside the mansion.

And the walls seem to be whispering, "_Die."_

I shudder and hug myself as we walk through the hallways. We find nothing more than moulding old bits of food, occasional rooms that look like someone may have lived in them and even the occasional skeleton hidden in the corners of a forgotten closet.

It seems like whoever left did it quickly. There's still food on the table in the dining room, except now it's pretty much grown all furry and is quite likely to be able to create intelligent life sometime in the future. Stains of what might be blood are trodden into the floor and the severed head of a little girl's doll rolls across the dining room floor, almost like an invisible spectre is playing with it.

The walls aren't whispering anymore. They're chanting. The same words, over and over, working their way into my brain and making it hard to think.

"_Getoutgetoutgetout. Begonebegonebegone. Whywon__'__tyoudie?"_

I look away from the rolling doll's head and try to focus on something else. Mandy is chattering under its breath, whispering things I can't quite understand or hear. Jerry, Ali and their pokémon all seem on edge, though if they can hear the chants coming from the walls, they aren't saying anything.

"_I'mgoingtoeatyou. Ripandtearboilandburn. Fleshfleshfleshfleshflesh."_

"Can you guys hear that?" I finally ask.

"_Meatmeatmeatmeatmeat."_

"Hear what?" Jerry asks me.

"_Freshmeat. Humans. Humanshumanshumans. Whichonetoeatfirst? Meatmeatmeatmeatmeat."_

Ali frowns at me. "I don't hear anything either. Why, can you?"

"_Tastytastytastyflesh."_

"No," I say instinctively, like I shouldn't let them know I'm weird enough to hear the chanting. But something tells me I _have _to let them know – that if I can hear it, it might help us or something.

"There's something in hear, whispering," I say. "It's like the walls are saying things."

"_Burnthemburnthemburnthem!"_

"What?" Ali asks.

"_Killkillkillkillkillkill."_

Jerry crouches down to my level and puts his hands on my shoulders. He looks more worried than I feel. He presses the back of his hand to my forehead and asks, "What's going on?"

"_**KILL THEM!"**_

I jump so quickly that I actually nearly fall over. Jerry's eyes are wide – like he's seeing something move without anything actually moving it. The doors to the room all _slam_ shut and a breeze comes from nowhere and makes the ancient tablecloth start to flutter and _moan._

"We need to get out of here," I say as quickly as I can. Mandy's about to leap off my shoulder and start attacking the air itself, but I try to keep my pokémon with me. It knows something's wrong. It means that I'm not completely insane for being able to hear everything.

"_Killthechildkillthechild. Cutthegirlcutthegirl. Eattheboyeattheboy.__"_

I scrunch my eyes shut and slap my hands over my ears. It doesn't block out the sound.

"_Foodfoodfoodfoodfood."_

"_Meatmeatmeatmeatmeat."_

"_**Now you die."**_

I jump out of my skin again. The room seems to have stopped in time – everything's still. Jerry and Ali seem to move in slow motion. I don't understand what's going on, but I see the shadows start to move towards us. They hunt like vultures, creeping along the walls like plague and swallowing all forms of hope and light.

Distantly, I hear giggling.

I turn towards it, somehow moving at normal speed as everything around me moves in slow motion.

I see a little blonde girl, dressed in white. She doesn't look at me. She runs from me, her laugh echoing all around me as she makes her way to one of the doors I know are locked.

I look back at Jerry and Ali. They're still going in slow motion. I don't understand it, but I decide that if I'm normal, then that means I can do something! Elizabeth moves in slow motion, shedding feathers as it goes to attack the shadows. I see black collecting in Annie's arms; the bolts of black lightning forming so slowly I can see every detail of them perfectly. Cap is racing to block the shadows from Ali, Nina about to dive in, horn first towards the plague.

Yet Mandy and I are strangely exempt from all of this. I reach up to my shoulder and pet my pokémon, if only to reassure myself that I'm not going completely crazy.

"Come on," I whisper to it. Mandy nips my ear in response. I don't even tell it off. I need to figure out what's going on with this strange girl.

Her laughter leads me towards her, even when she disappears _through_ the door. I reach it and bite my lip as I touch the door handle. I know it's locked – I tried it myself when we got in the room!

Yet now it opens at the slightest touch.

The door creaks open almost as loudly as the front door to the house. The room inside is pitch black – but somehow, I'm able to see perfectly within. Little columns stand everywhere in the room, each holding some sort of gruesome trophy hidden behind a glass box. I see hands, feet and even the occasional face, all hidden behind glass and somehow still perfectly preserved.

They're all human.

And when they see me, they all move towards me.

I stop myself from screaming, but I don't know how. The hands _thud_ against their glass boxes. So do the feet. The faces do nothing, instead just following me like eyeless masks.

I see the distant form of the girl some distance ahead, glowing like a beacon in all the darkness. I gulp and take a deep breath before I follow her.

I walk between all the body parts as I do. They keep following me. The faces turn to watch me walk past them, the hands and feet attacking their boxes with increasing ferocity as I race my way past.

I see mouths on red velvet cushions, hidden behind the glass boxes. They don't move on my approach, but they start to speak as I pass them.

"_Savemesavemesaveme."_

"_Killmeplease. OhmakethepainstopIcan'ttakeitanymore."_

"_Ohgodohgodohgodnononono__**no**_!"

"_**She's here."**_

Quiet bursts into life throughout everything. The little girl is gone; her giggles removed from the world like they were never there in the first place.

The first sign I get that something is wrong is when Mandy starts growling.

I spin around and find the shadows of the room grouping together, forming one large object. It flickers and wavers, almost like it's composed of nothing but evil and smoke.

Finally, it takes a human shape.

A pair of blood red eyes snaps open.

"_Welcome_," the voice says. It washes over me like a shower of disgust, making me shudder and want to run. It seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once and leaves me feeling nothing but fear and despair.

I didn't even know I could feel so upset. I don't want to do anything more than lie down and give up. I'm so sad. It eats away at me, feelings of pain so great, feelings of losing people that I don't even know, yet it eats at me and gnaws against my soul and makes me want to do nothing more than give up and join them all.

"_Yes~_" the voice hums. _"Lay down. Give in. It will all be over soon."_

My eyelids are heavy. It would be so easy to give up, wouldn't it? I could use a sleep. I haven't managed to sleep since seeing the zombies. How long ago was that? It feels like months.

The world spins –

It shifts out of focus –

I see the shadow coming towards me –

My eyelids are so heavy –

Just… five minutes –

_**Screee!**_

I leap out of my skin and fall against the floor, even though I'm already lying on it. Mandy attacks my ear, screeching in it again and again until I can't really hear anything anymore, but I'm not tired and I can see the shadows moving towards me, one hand outstretched and hovering just above my head.

I'm trembling too much to say anything. Instead I scramble to my feet and run away from it until I reach the nearest wall and press up against it, panting for breath trying desperately to stop my heart keep _thud, thud, thudding_ in my chest.

The shadows let their hand drop. All the while, the bright red eyes remain focused on me. It tilts what might be its head like a curious herdier and suddenly, a smile full of nothing but _needles_ spreads across its face.

"_Interesting,_" it says in a voice that makes me feel sick. _"Come here child. Dying doesn't hurt, I promise."_

I shake my head and back into the wall just a little bit more. "N-no," I stutter out. "I'm not going with you."

The smile grows larger than the shadows' face. _"I used to be human once. This form is so much better. Killing becomes so much easier when you're a gengar."_

I have no idea what one of those is, but I don't want to stay around long enough to find out. The shadows step closer towards me and Mandy seems to have had enough. It screeches louder than ever, leaps at the shadows and starts tearing strips of them away.

The smile turns into a frown almost instantly. _"Bothersome pest,_" it says and smacks Mandy aside like it's nothing more than a tiny fly. Mandy shrieks and disappears somewhere into the shadows and no matter how much I scream out, it doesn't come back to find me.

"_Don't worry_," the shadows say. _"I've had plenty of practice cutting little girls up. You won't even suffer for long._" It stretches out a hand again. I see something start to form in them, almost like a knife. It glistens in light that doesn't exist and comes closer and closer and closer towards me.

I break into a run again. I knock over one of the podiums as I charge past it, sending the mouth inside into a frantic screaming fit of, _"He'scominghe'scominghe'scoming!"_

"_Notagainnotagainnotagain!"_ another mouth screams.

"_Killherkillherkillher!"_ another shouts.

I move past them and feel my heart pounding in my ears. I'm not going to let some weird creepy ghost thing kill me! I need to find a way out! The ghost-girls must have led me here for a reason! They can't be singing random stuff to me, only to let some weird thing called a gengar kill me!

I shriek as something _crashes_ above me. Dust rains down all around me from the darkness above and I find that now I can't even see what's going on. All I can see are the glowing red of the thing's eyes and the glistening sharpness of the knife that it's going to kill me with.

This can't be happening. I have to be imagining this. I've passed out from fear because of the steelix and I'm going to wake up somewhere nice and warm, where Jerry and Ali aren't suspended in time and I don't have some creepy ghost-thing that claims to have been human trying to kill me and –

Freezing _cold_ warps itself around my chest and stops me from moving. My feet leave the floor and I kick and struggle but there's nothing for me to press against and I can feel myself choking and I can't breathe because it's pressing against my chest and around my throat and there's no air getting in and something sharp presses against my neck and _oh my god I don't want to die!_

A flash of light stuns me and makes the shadows back away. I drop to the floor and manage to sob and gulp down air in the same moment. My eyes blur with tears as I look back up and see one of the creepy girls facing the shadow-demon, her hair billowing around her like lives snakes and the red eyes of the shadows actually looking somewhat scared which only makes me even more scared.

The shadows hiss and shift in the air. They move back from the girl, but they're stopped by another one behind it. I can't see her – she's blocked by the mess of the shadows – and then another appears next to her. There's a massive flash of light and suddenly the shadows are surrounded on all sides by little girls in white with blonde hair that whips behind all of them.

They look up at the monster and even though I can't see their faces, I get the feeling they're smiling. One by one they join hands and they start to skip around the thing, singing as they do so.

"_Bleed it dry, destroy its brain – all your efforts are in vain. Victory will lie within your grasp – all it requires is you surrender your heart~"_

There's a flash of white so bright that I have to close my eyes and put my arm over them. When it clears, I blink spots away and find myself still trapped in the darkness, except now there's no shadows and only one little girl stood there, still facing away from me.

"H-hello?" I say to her.

She keeps her gaze away from me. Even as she does so, on her own she sings the exact same thing again.

"_Bleed it dry, destroy its brain – all your efforts are in vain. Victory will lie within your grasp – all it requires is you surrender your heart~"_

She stops and there's a moment of silence. Abruptly she spins her head around completely and I scream because _she has no face!_

Her song echoes all around me, again and again and again and as the black creeps into my vision, I'm left with the sight of her faceless gaze burning into mine.

**-O-O-O-**

When I finally wake up, my brain feels like it's filled with wool. I'm sure I can hear something like my name being shouted, but it's just too hard to even begin concentrating on what's happening.

It feels like forever passes until I'm finally able to think again. I remember the creepy gengar, the room full of screaming body parts and the scary girl and the ever encroaching darkness that just kept coming and coming and –

Mandy!

I practically leap to my feet and begin the search for my pokémon, even with my eyes still half shut and my brain still not working properly.

I don't make it even a step before someone attacks me and picks me up and into the air. I scream and grab hold of whoever it is by the hair, still not entirely certain of what's going on but sure that I don't want to be picked up and strangled again.

Beneath me, all I can hear is, "She's awake! You're awake! _Ow _that's my hair! You're awake!"

Focus starts to bleed its way into my brain. "Jerry?" I ask, half certain that's who the voice belongs to.

I'm answered by a laugh and what I'm half-certain is a kiss on my cheek. Weird.

"Don't ever scare me like that again," Jerry warns me. I blink him into focus and see what I'm half-sure are old tear streaks down his face. Elizabeth nudges my head with all three beaks, squawking things I don't understand. Annie floats above us both, whilst Ali's smiling at me, Cap and Nina by her side and most importantly a struggling, squeaking Mandy in her arms.

"Mandy!" I practically throw myself out of my brother's grip and at my pokémon. Instead all I manage to do is over balance in my brother's arms and send us both crashing to the floor. Ali laughs a little and lets Mandy go and instantly I'm attacked by the little bundle of black feathers as I hug it to my face and promise to never, ever let any of my pokémon ever go again. I even let Kiki out of its ball and hug it too! The face it gives me shows that somehow my maractus knows what's been going on, even though it was locked away all the time and shouldn't.

Ali squats down beside me and holds my cheeks in her hands. She seems like she's inspecting me for damage I've probably missed or completely forgotten about. "What happened?" she asks. "We blinked and suddenly you'd vanished. Then we found you in this room with everyone else."

My surroundings swim into my vision instantly. I see the room in light now. Its old, empty and completely devoid of anything that happens to even looks slightly like body parts on a podium. Instead there's a few people, all piled up and dead.

I see that all of their throats have been sliced open. I swallow heavily, knowing that I could have been one of those people, were things a little different.

"I… I'm not sure," I say. It's true, because even though I experienced everything, I still have no real idea of what actually went on, save for a load of shadows and creepy things that were trying to kill me. "What…?" I say as I look at the bodies.

Jerry shrugs. "I'm guessing whatever was in here did that. I –"

A moan from underneath the bodies cuts him off. I leap away from them, clutching both my pokémon as I do so, whilst Ali looks like she's about to kick the pile with her pokémon acting as back up.

Jerry seems to spot something we don't. He rushes at the pile and starts pulling dead people off and dropping them to one side. Ali joins in quickly and I'm left completely clueless, sat a few paces away with their pokémon as they drag someone out of the pile and rush around as they press their spare clothes against his fountaining neck.

The man looks like he's barely even alive. His hair seems like it was originally kind of red, except now it's completely stained with blood. He's paler than I even thought possible and he's wearing a little badge that I recognise instantly as a Sinnoh gym leader's identification.

"I see you found Roark."

We all jump at Ryan's voice. She sweeps in through the doorway, drapion following behind her. Her bat is covered in goo and she looks like she's been fighting things the entire time I was trapped in the room with the horrible gengar.

"I gotta say Roark, you look like shit," she says, even as she shoves Jerry out of the way and takes over from him. "Now shut up, stop blubbering about how you've had your throat sliced and _calm down_. You've lost a lot of blood, you're lucky to be alive. Most importantly –"

She looks down at her hands, sees them covered in blood and freezes for a moment. It's almost like she's reliving something, but then she seems to snap back out of it and becomes focused again. "Most importantly, Roark, you're a gym leader. Which means that you have to be tough and you'll live through this. I bet my favourite vibrator on it."

She turns around and looks at Ali. "You. Go see if you can find someone else that's alive to help us out here. You," she says to Jerry, "see if anyone else is alive in this creepy mansion. The ghosts are all gone now, you shouldn't have any problems. You can help me out here," she says to me.

Jerry gives me a look that says he doesn't want to leave me alone. I shake my head at him and wordlessly let him know I'll be fine with my pokémon here. He nods and sets off a little reluctantly, sticking close to Ali as he does so.

Once we're alone, Ryan sighs, hair drooping in her face and offers me a small smile. "You did good kid," she says.

I look up at her, completely confused. She keeps her smile spread across her face, but its meaning is completely hidden in mystery.

"Not many people would be able to fight off a fully grown gengar like that. Especially not one so juiced up like it was." She looks away and focuses on nothing in particular. "Older, stronger people that you have fought against them and lost."

"Oh," I say, because really, what do I say to that? "It wasn't me," I admit. At her intrigued look, I just shrug and hold Jerry's old shirt against Roark's bleeding neck. "There was this girl in white. She appeared and held it off, then a few more did and then suddenly she was alone and the gengar thing was gone, but the girl was still there and she started singing a song and _she had no face!"_

I'm breathless by the time I finish and I'm not even certain why. Ryan's eyes go from incredibly wide to subdued as she bites on her bottom lip. Her face holds a mystery that I know I'm never even going to begin to be able to decipher.

"It said it used to be human," I tell her. Roark's silent, but he looks like he's not really listening. Or if he is, he isn't saying anything and Ryan seems to trust him, which means that I can too. "The gengar did. Is that true?"

Ryan shrugs. "Most of the time, pokémon ghosts are different ghosts. But…" She leans in close to me. "I want to know something. Can you keep what I'm going to tell you a secret?"

I nod quickly. Obviously if it's something weird and creepy, then I'm just going to have Kiki needle her in the face.

Ryan takes in a breath and moves back. "It wasn't a gengar – not a real one. There's something here that made the gastly act up like that. What you saw was originally a gengar, but it got warped."

I want to know more, but she goes silent on the subject. "How do you know so much about this?" I ask her.

She smiles at me again, though this time I see the sadness behind it. "There are a lot of things in this world that most people don't know about or see. Maybe you'll understand one day, but I really hope you never have to."

I don't know what to say to that. I realise that she's not going to say anything more about the subject, so I drop into silence, taking comfort in the fact that my pokémon are here with me. We remain like that for a little while until Ali and Jerry finally return with _humans_ that are here to help us.

I grin at the sight of living, breathing, not trying to eat my face humans and decide that when Roark gets better and I've battled him, I'm never, ever coming back to Sinnoh again.


	10. The Steps to Success

_Dear Diary,_

_My investigations are proving pointless. I must move on – my sources of information are depleting. I have gathered and heard whispers of things they call Badges. They sound like trinkets that measure power._

_My path is obvious; I must gather these objects of power and learn their mysteries. Perhaps they will grant me the answers I seek._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|The Steps to Success|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

Within a day, the stalked becomes the stalker.

It doesn't notice I'm here. I don't know how; I'm not complaining. It giggles to itself, floating around in complete obliviousness. It fades through a wall and I panic, fearing it's become lost to the world. After a second it reappears like nothing has ever changed.

I smile to myself. My weapon is in my hands. It won't ever see me coming and before it knows anything I will –

A hand wraps around my mouth.

I shriek and bite down on it as hard as I can. My heart is racing because the gengar's come back and somehow found me and it's going to slice my neck open and _I'm going to die!_

Sound comes from my attacker. I whirl around, thankful my feet are still on the floor and I kick the creep in the shins. There's a familiar shout of pain, but I ignore it in favour of turning around to face and claim my prey –

Except it's gone.

I click my tongue and slide my hands onto my hips in frustration. Just _where_ did that gastly go? I've spent _ages_ tracking it and making sure it split away from all the others! I can't let all that work go to waste just because of someone else trying to scare me!

"Firstly; what are you doing out here?" Jerry asks from behind me. "Secondly – and more importantly – _ow_."

My heart stops racing just a little. I glare at him like he's the reason for all my problems and I try to ignore the imaginary blade that presses against my neck.

"I wanted a gastly," I whine, no matter how immature it makes me sound. "They're strong."

Jerry looks at me like I've told him I wish to strip naked and dance the Macarena with a machoke. "Have you forgotten the part where they were possessing and _eating_ people?"

"That just means they're strong," I say defiantly.

He shakes his head. "You're not capturing one. You're not strong enough to train one."

"I _so_ am!" I argue back, stamping my foot as I do so. "I'm the one who beat that creepy as hell gengar! I managed to sneak away when everything went all weird and it's _me_ who keeps seeing dead mythical pokémon! I think that makes me strong enough to capture one little ghost!"

Jerry sighs, rolls his eyes and throws his hands into the air in one movement. "Fine," he says. He suddenly becomes all serious and reaches for one of the poké balls on his belt. "You want me to believe that you're strong? Prove it."

"Fine!" I yell, punching the air near him. He doesn't even so much as flinch. I frown at him and decide that if he wants to see how strong I am, he's going to regret it. "You're going down!" I scream and throw both my pokémon at him.

They explode in bright white light. I can feel the confusion coming off them both as they see Jerry stood opposite them, poké balls in his hands. Sure, we've trained against each other before, but this is different.

"Remember, you asked for this, Squirt," he says. He flicks out a poké ball and I see the familiar sight of his bibarel forming. It looks at me with such a goofy expression that I can't help but feel insulted. I try to show him how strong I am, and he sends out _this_ for me to battle?

Jerry just smirks at me. "Go," he says, and I swear to god, in the time it takes me to _blink_, both my pokémon are completely knocked out.

"_What_?!" I shriek. I race at my pokémon and prod them as if that's going to prove they're still able to fight. Neither of them responds, but they're still breathing. I didn't even see them begin to defend themselves!

"You cheated!" I accuse. I stomp my way up to Jerry, purposely ignoring his stupid pokémon and glare up at him. "You… you did _something_! There's no way your pokémon should move that fast and beat mine! I beat trainers older than me _all the time!_ You've cheated and done something."

"Yes," he drawls, rolling his eyes. "What I've done is _trained._ You're not strong enough. Mandy still has the habit of torturing people and pokémon with pranks. Kiki is borderline psychotic about protecting you. Letting them get away with that whilst beating other pokémon up isn't training them."

"And have you seen _your_ pokémon?" I shout. "Your dodrio is insanely stupid; you have a throh that flashes people and do I need to mention Jim and throwing _flaming poop_ at trees?!"

"That's different," he says tersely. "They listen when I need them to. They don't go off acting like that when they know they shouldn't."

"Jerk," I growl and storm away from him. All things considered, it's a pretty small argument, but I still maintain that I win.

**-O-O-O-**

I find myself back at Eterna General Hospital without ever being aware that I was heading towards there. No one I know happens to be there - after the _thing_defeated the gengar (or not-gengar, as Ryan won't tell what it really was) - and both Ali and Jerry happen to be in near-perfect health, according to the doctors.

So I'm just a little surprised when I wander through the little playground outside and find Ryan there, sitting alone on a swing that even _I_wouldn't be able to fit into. She looks like she's just lost a war and barely even registers me as I take the swing next to her and struggle to squeeze onto the baby seat.

"Hey," I say, gaining her attention, "what'cha doing?"

She manages a tiny smile as she looks up at me. "Thinking mostly," she says, sounding like she's drifting off in some magical place far, far away. "Just... yeah. Thinking."

"Oh," I say, because really, I can't think of anything else I could possibly say to that. Instead I kick my feet under my swing, humming just a little until I realise that something's missing from both around us and on Ryan's person. "Where's your drapion?" I ask her.

"He's not mine," she says, shrugging just slightly. "He belongs to a friend of mine. We came here hoping to find her. We got separated when..." - she pulls a face and shakes her head - "when doesn't matter. We lost her and her drapion got left with me. He's gone now too, off to find his master. I guess I'm not really much of a trainer - never really wanted to be one anyway, if I'm honest."

"Me neither," I say. "I wanted to go to school but... some stuff happened and I can't anymore. Not for a while at least - I can go to one back in Unova, but first I have to defeat eight different gym leaders from _everywhere_. And Roark's one of them, but he's in hospital because that gengar that you say wasn't a gengar sliced his throat open."

"Don't think about that too much," Ryan tells me. "Don't think about it at all, if you can help it. I'd hate for you to get involved in... well, let's just not even mention that. Why not go fight one of the other gym leaders in Sinnoh? Surely by the time you've travelled there, beaten them and come back, Roark will be back on his feet."

"Roark's the only one I have to beat in Sinnoh," I say, folding my arms and scowling. "When I beat him, I can get out of here and never come back! I don't want to be in Sinnoh; it has haunted mansions and towns full of zombies and giant angry steelix that come from ancient temples and eat little kids!"

Ryan laughs. "I think that last one is just a fairy tale, made up to scare kids like you."

"It's not!" I tell her, even going so far as to show her bruises I got from escaping them. "There was this kid with us; he was a little older than me. The steelix just launched up from the ground and _ate_ him! Then there was another one that came after us and I don't really even know how we managed to escape them! Sinnoh _sucks_," I declare, making my judgement.

Ryan laughs just a little more. She leans forwards, folding her hands over each other and staring off at something I can't seem to follow. "I'll agree with you on that one. We shouldn't have come here. At least I wouldn't be having to scour the globe without a pokémon to my name."

I think of offering to help her, if only because it will get me away for a little while. As quickly as the thought comes, I bat it away. Whatever she's doing, she knows about the not-gengar and all its creepiness. That means she's seen something like it before, which means that if I helped her, I'd see something like it again. I can happily pass on doing that.

"What's your friend look like?" I ask her. "We might have seen her. She might have been one of those zombies."

I wince as I hear what I've just said. Ryan doesn't seem to mind though, only smiling a little and squeezing my shoulder comfortingly.

"I thought the same for a little while. Don't worry about that - Drapes and I checked the dead... well, the ones we could actually check, anyway. None of them were her. I'm looking for a girl named Toni," she tells me. "A bit taller than me, about my age. Black, with dreadlocks that have bright red highlights running through them. She's also a geek, so you'd probably have found her hiding in a library somewhere, wrestling the books away from zombies." She laughs, like she's made a joke I don't quite understand.

"I came here hoping she might have dropped by," Ryan says, pointing at the hospital that seems to loom all around us. "No joy, predictably." She sighs, gets to her feet and offers me a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I better start making tracks. I can't find her if I do nothing more than sit around, moping about it." She pulls me into a quick hug before pushing me back and making my swing begin to rock into the air. "Take care of yourself kiddo. Don't let me catch you hunting anymore nightmares."

I jump off the swing in mid-air - simply because I'm that awesome - before hugging her. "I won't," I promise her.

The look she gives me almost says that she knows I'm going to find them anyway. I watch her leave, wondering if I should let out my pokémon to keep me company. I decide against it, content to simply sit in silence and plan my next steps - Kanto, Johto or Hoenn. Where do I go to next?

I smile at a boy about my age that passes through the little park with an old man that looks like he's partly dead already - I've never seen skin so _grey_on someone that's meant to be alive before! Except for the zombies, but since he's not attempting to gnaw on the kid's head, I guess that he must be human.

"Look Grandpa!" the kid shouts, pointing behind me. "It's Roark!"

I spin around even though he's not talking to me. I barely even hear the old man say, "It's rude to point son, leave him to his business," because sure enough, Roark is actually in a wheelchair, moving himself up the tarmac path towards me.

He looks older than I remember, I notice first. He's got more colour to his face and even with the dark purple sweater he wears that covers most of his neck, I can still see a thick, angry red line across his throat. He smiles and waves at me, so I jump off the swing and head towards him, grinning like a lunatic.

"Hi," I say when I reach him. I frown as he smiles at me, simply because even sitting down, he's still my height. "Should you be out here? I thought with the _really_ bad injuries, they kept you in for longer? And you had your throat sliced open, so that _has_to be a really bad injury."

He laughs. It's a deep, throaty sound that makes me think of a golem gargling rocks. "That's true," he says, his voice all raspy and barely more than a whisper. "But I'm not going to sit around while there's stuff I can do."

"Oh," I say. "Okay. What do you need to do?"

He shrugs. "Help the town get back together again. Find out what caused the ghosts to act the way they did. Reward the people who helped save the town."

"Who're they?" I ask. He stares at me for a very long time until it finally clicks. "Wait, _me_? What did I do?"

He gestures to his throat. "If it wasn't for you, this would have killed me. You and your friends helped save my life and got rid of the ghosts that were plaguing us so much."

I go to tell him that it wasn't really my doing, that it was actually down to some creepy girl without a face. I quickly realise just how insane that sounds, though I know he must have heard me mention it to Ryan when we were trying to keep him alive. Maybe he doesn't remember it or maybe he's just pretending he doesn't. Either way, something tells me not to mention it to him.

"I... uh, thanks," I say stupidly. "But it wasn't really me doing much. I mean, my brother and my friend were there too."

Roark moves his hand like he's waving away any of my concerns. "Don't worry. I'll make sure you're all rewarded. The only problem I find is what to reward a ten year old trainer with?"

I shrug, because I don't actually know what I'd want as a reward. I mean, it'd be awesome to get to choose whatever I wanted, but the fact that I'm meant to be going to Kanto soon plays heavily on my mind. Even if Roark would fund me through the school I want to go to, I know I'd somehow feel like I was letting down Lenora. And Lenora is _awesome_. I don't want to let her down.

"I want a battle," I tell Roark.

He laughs his gravelly laugh once more. "I think, given what you've done for us, that I can give you the badge here and now."

I shake my head at him, somehow knowing that he doesn't quite understand. "I'm not challenging Sinnoh gyms," I tell him. "Just you. Well, only you from Sinnoh. Then there are others." I explain to him everything that's happening and show him my pokédex, proud that there's only one scratch across it's back, given everything we've been through.

He hands me back my pokédex and smiles at me. "Usually this sort of thing means that I give a different sort of battle approach. With most trainers, they're tested on basic things; how well they control their pokémon, how quickly they can adapt to situations... their will to fight, or survive, as it were. Even if they win the battle, we can refuse them the badge if we think that they're going to go psychopathic and kill everyone."

There's an emotion in his face I can't quite place. As quickly as I notice it, it's gone, locked away forever under his emotionless calm. "These rules that you'll operate by are a little different. Did Lenora explain them to you?"

"Not really," I say. "She told me that when I get more badges, you guys will use stronger pokémon on me. She told me as well that I'm strong enough to do it and I don't have to be like the stupid rich kids whose parents pay for really strong rental pokémon." I grin at the memory of it alone.

"I know that feeling," Roark says, raspy-voiced. "You have to get badges from specific gym leaders because we're affiliates of Anville's history schools. Actually, they happen to be one large school, teaching from your age all the way up until doctorates and more."

"Really?" I ask, swelling up with pride once more. It sounds _awesome_and I've got a way into getting into this school! "But wait, how comes I haven't heard of you before then? You must be really smart if you're part of that school and I haven't heard of you at all in Unova - aside from gym leader-y things and... other stuff."

Roark doesn't say anything at my mention of that. He just smiles and motions for me to follow him. He grunts as he wheels his chair slowly around the little playground. I'm tempted to offer to push him, but I don't think I'm strong enough to. He doesn't seem to mind though, even if he does need to stop every minute or so.

"I studied here in Sinnoh before moving over there and working with them," he says. We move through the playground, even as it's still deserted. I know I should be creeped out by the empty, lifeless area, but with Roark with me it doesn't seem that creepy. "My area of expertise is in fossils. Whilst Lenora might be better at the identification, classification and conservation of them, my strengths lie in analysing where to find them, how to extract them and a few more things that _might_go over your head."

I smile sheepishly at him. I want to tell him I'll understand everything he tells me, but I'm already becoming a bit overwhelmed. He grins and reassures me, telling me that I'll know more than my brain can cope with once I start studying.

"Each of us has our own area that we can use in this sort of thing," he tells me. "Historians, scientists, sociologists... we all work together. We do this challenge not only to see how well people can defend themselves whilst they're out and about, but also to see how well they'd benefit studying at these schools - and how well the school would benefit from them, if you understand."

"I think so."

"To do this, obviously we battle to determine how smart you are with pokémon and how likely you are to work your way out of a scenario in which you might be forced to fight for yours, someone you know or your pokémon's life. Obviously, I'm passing you with full marks on that part."

I blush and giggle stupidly before I can stop myself. He just smirks at me and comes to a stop back in front of the swings. "The other part," he says, seriously, "is a more in-depth analysis of your smarts in terms of studying. Some leaders might do this in different ways - I know that Blaine in Kanto does a two part test - one of which involves an actual _test paper._"

I can't stop the gasp and groan of horror. Roark laughs. "Exactly," he says. "No one wants to do that. Be thankful I'm giving you warning. He usually likes to surprise people with that - though as for what's on the paper, I'm as much in the dark as you are. What I can do, however, is actually give you my test. If you were doing a normal challenge, I wouldn't bother with this. But given what you're going for, I feel that I should cover all the bases."

He reaches down, scoops a rock off of the floor and places it in my hands. "Say this is a rare artefact. What would you do with it if say, it turned out to be protected by a pokémon that wanted to attack you to get it back?"

"Run away," I answer almost immediately. Roark says nothing and I panic, assuming I've said the wrong thing. "I don't know. Urm. I think I'd try to give it back, I mean, if the thing really belonged to the pokémon, but I couldn't be sure unless I had a psychic with me."

"And how would you protect it?"

I shrug. "Keep it in like a box, or something? Make sure nothing gets to it and doesn't break it, I guess."

"And what if you didn't have a box?"

I frown at him. "Give it to someone else to look after then."

He laughs. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but he's smiling regardless. "Alright then," he says, "you passed that bit. You could have done better, but you're ten. Obviously those were the best answers you could give right now, and considering that, they happen to be pretty good answers."

I brighten immediately. "Does that mean I get a badge?"

"Nearly." He reaches into one of the pockets of his jumper – it's a good thing he's not wearing a silly hospital gown because I'd be scared if he got one from in there somehow – and releases a _huge_ pokémon that towers over me! It's brown, with blue markings and a domed head. Its eyes are really, _really_ red, like blood. But somehow it doesn't seem all that scary and instead manages to look… friendly.

"Protect the stone," he says to me. Before I even get a chance to ask him what he means, he looks to his pokémon and says, "Special test. I think you know what to do."

His pokémon roars an answer. The sound sends a shiver down my back. I don't even get a chance to ask just what's going on because suddenly the dinosaur is _breathing_ _fire_ and it's heading right towards me!

I scream and throw myself out of the way. I land on the grass, hard, with the stupid rock pressing into my chest. The ground _rumbles_ as the pokémon comes after me; a constant _thud, thud, thud_ as it approaches and I can feel the heat coming off of it once more and _why does every pokémon want to kill me?!_

I claw at the ground and use it to get back to my feet. The pokémon is starting to collect fire again, so I grab a handful or dirt and throw it at its face! It doesn't do anything more than annoy it, but it buys me a little time.

"Why are you doing this?" I scream at Roark. He doesn't say anything – instead he simply wheels himself out of the way as I charge towards him. I grab onto the back of his chair, deciding that even if his pokémon is trying to kill me, it won't kill him!

Roark seems ready for this though. He spins around his chair so that my back is to his pokémon and a perfect target. I run from his chair, hearing the pokémon chase after me, roaring as it comes. I just barely remember to hold onto the stupid rock and slide it into my jeans as I run from the evil, angry pokémon.

I throw myself past the swings and throw them at the pokémon as hard as I can. It catches on in its mouth and bites _through_ the swing in one big chomp! It spits out the remains and I don't wait to become the next meal for it. Instead I run away, over the top of the roundabout and barely keep my footing as it starts to spin underneath my feet.

The pokémon charges at me again. I grab hold of the handles of the roundabout and _pull_ with every bit of strength I have in me. The pokémon charges just as the roundabout starts spinning and goes _smack, smack, smack_ in its stupid face!

It roars, angry and I see that fire no longer comes from its mouth. Instead it spits a freezing beam of white than erupts into ice as soon as it hits the floor. It washes over the roundabout, freezes it solid and continues far past me, in a straight line and freezing everything in its path.

I duck behind a bin, panting heavily. Just when I think the pokémon is out of tricks, it smacks its tail on the floor and a huge piece of stone flies out. It spins and smacks the stone with its thick tail and I barely throw myself to the floor in time as the rock _smashes_ into the bin and breaks it, showering me in little pieces of food.

"_Gross!"_ I moan, but even that doesn't stop the monster. Belatedly, I realise that I still have my pokémon on me. I run for the roundabout again, the pokémon advancing. I feel the heat coming from it and dart to one side as it spits fire again. The ice _hisses_ as the fire washes over it and melts it. I grin, spin the roundabout as quickly as I can and throw my poké ball into the centre as it starts to spin _fast_.

"Kiki!" I scream, even before it's fully formed. "Needles!"

I hide behind the safety of a thorn bush. Kiki spins as it takes shape on the roundabout and if it gets dizzy, it doesn't show it. Instead it raises its hands and tiny little green needles fly _everywhere_ as it spins and spins and _spins_.

The dinosaur roars in pain as the needles puncture into it. I hear Roark swear from some distance away. I flinch as the needles shoot into the bush and are only just stopped by the thorns before they tear into me.

I look back up as Kiki stumbles off the roundabout. It grunts something that I _know_ is something it would hit _me_ for saying. The dinosaur roars at it and tries to breathe fire again. Kiki grunts and a massive root shoots out from the floor and _punches_ the thing right underneath the chin! It goes down with a huge roar and I go to celebrate before I see that Roark is cheating and has let more pokémon out while I've been distracted! I recognise the silly nose-moustache thing as a probopass, but there's a thing that walks on all fours and has a face like a shield that's ganging up on Kiki with the probopass.

And I have no idea what _that_ is, but it looks like it's a wriggling, shaking tree with pompoms but I don't want to find out just what it is because it's coming towards me and _I don't want to be killed by a tree!_

Mandy emerges in a flash of light. I'm barely even aware I've called it out before I have her attack the tree thing. I try to direct Kiki against the things that are attacking it, but it's too hard when Mandy's on the other side of me and I'm having to watch them both at once.

I glare at Roark as he sits there, not saying anything. His stupid dinosaur thing is getting back to its feet and I just know that there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to stop it now. Why did I even save this jerk? I should have left him in that stupid house with that creepy thing if this is how he treats me for saving his life!

"You want this stupid thing kept safe?" I scream at him. "Well you look after it!" I throw it at him and by some small miracle it manages to land neatly in his lap. He looks up at me, says nothing, but a small smile crosses his face.

Then he raises his hands, claps and all his pokémon stop at once. Mandy and Kiki fall over themselves as they go to complete their attacks, only for their opponents to withdraw at the last moment.

"_What the hell was that?"_ I screech at Roark. Kiki doesn't even attack me for cursing. Instead it grumbles something that I'm fairly certain is it agreeing with me completely and calling Roark something worse.

Roark withdraws all his pokémon at once. They vanish in bright red light and I'm left there, a vullaby and a maractus by my side, disgruntled and ready to attack without me giving a word.

"You passed," Roark says quietly. It takes a moment for me to hear him, then a moment longer to actually process what he means. All the anger fades from me in an instant and I scream and jump about, grabbing Kiki to celebrate, even if it growls at me and the needles dig into my skin.

"Sometimes the best way to keep something safe is to pass it to someone else," Roark tells me. "I can happily tell you that you've officially earned my badge."

It doesn't seem real, even as he takes my pokédex and updates all my information on there. I see it written before my eyes, in bright red font, but even so, I still don't quite believe it.

My pokémon seem confused about it all, but my being happy is enough to placate them. Even so, I still order Kiki to break the stupid stone Roark wanted protecting, just on principle alone.

**-O-O-O-**

I swan into the pokémon centre like I own the place. People and their pokémon are slowly trickling back into Eterna, whispering to each other and wondering just what happened. I want to tell them that there were _zombies_ eating people, but something stops me from letting that get out. Roark had asked me to keep it quiet after he'd given me my badge, and even if he was a jerk for what he did, I don't really want to give people more reason to try and find me, given that I've already seen dead legends.

My pokémon don't really need healing all that much, but I still hand them over to the nurse at reception all the same. He thanks me, tells me a time to come back and collect them and lets me know that he's seen my brother in the training suites downstairs. I wonder just why it is that everyone seems to always keep an eye on trainers travelling together, but I guess since there are so many trainers that go missing and so many people that panic when they can't find someone, it must make their job a little easier.

I find Jerry downstairs, hiding atop a cabinet that's at least twice as tall as me. His dodrio is below, screeching at him with all three heads. Nearby Ali is laughing to herself, holding her gut and about to fall off one of the little wooden benches. Other people are either laughing or pretending they can't see it and instead carrying on with their training.

I waltz up to Elizabeth and smile up at Jerry. "You were saying that _my_ pokémon need discipline?"

Jerry shoots me a glare that could melt walls. "Shut up and help me distract this stupid bird."

I lean back, rolling on the balls of my feet. "Why not recall it? That would help."

"If I had her ball, don't you think I would have done that already? _Someone,_" – he glares at Ali – "stole it off me."

I look at Ali and she shrugs. Still laughing, she comes over and leans her elbow on my head. "I wanted to see just how annoyed we could make his dodrio. That whole thing about your dad teaching your pokémon to stop you swearing? Well it turns out that there are some words that _really_ annoy your pokémon."

I'm tempted to ask her what word this is, but I get the feeling that in this mood, Elizabeth would probably attack us too. "How did he even get up there?" I ask Ali.

She shrugs, pretending to be all too innocent. "I _may_ have had Cap put him up there. Only in the interest of science! It made him say a few things that led to this situation."

"Okay," I say, like it's a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I grin at Ali and fish my pokédex out of my pocket. She doesn't get a chance to ask me before I shove it into her hands and squeal, "I beat Roark!"

She looks down at the pokédex, up at me and then laughs. "So you did. Did you kick his ass?"

"Totally!" I declare. "And he says that we get rewards, because we helped stop all the… _you know_," I say, looking around slowly as if everyone is trying to listen in on our conversation.

"Rewards?" Ali's eyes sparkle. We can hear Jerry above us, still crying for help. We ignore him totally. "What rewards?"

"Roark said he's going to have a pokémon teleport me to Snowpoint, so that I can get the ferry from there to Kanto. He said he'll do the same if you guys are going there, and he's paying for our tickets too! And because I told him all about the school I'm going to, he's signed me up for some archaeology and history research thing, which means that whenever a new copy comes out, the nearest pokémon centre gives me a free copy!" I think it's _totally_ awesome, even if Ali's facial expression shows that she doesn't think so. "And I told him that you're training fighters, so he said that if you're going to Kanto, he's going to pull a few strings and have all the karate monks train you and your pokémon for a few months."

"_Really?"_

I think Ali's part zubat. Her screeching hurts my ears and even as she continues to bounce up and down, celebrating and telling everyone else they're losers, I'm pretty sure I've lost the ability to hear properly.

"Come on!" she screams, grabbing me and dragging me away. "We're going to see him. Right now."

"What about me?" Jerry wails from somewhere behind us.

Ali grins and recalls Elizabeth. She hands the poké ball to me, waves at Jerry and says innocently, "What about you?"

"Get me down from here!"

I blink. "Did you hear something?" I ask Ali.

"Nope," she says quickly. "I heard nothing. Did you?"

"Nope," I say. Ali drags me from the pokémon centre and I make sure that I turn around and stick my tongue out at Jerry just before I disappear through the doors. Serves him right for being mean to me!

**-O-O-O-**

Teleporting is weird, I decide. I don't really notice much about it, other than a bright blue sort of glow and everything around me _melting_. Then just as suddenly, we're in a new place, with Candice and her evil, flowing coat stood in front of us, her face still hidden in shadows.

"Roark tells me what you did in Eterna," she says. Her voice makes me incredibly uncomfortable and sends shivers down my spine. "I should thank you. Feel free to come back to Snowpoint anytime – though try not to bring destruction with you next time."

She turns and her cloak flaps dramatically behind her. She leaves the pokémon centre, disappearing into the snowing night. Ali and Jerry don't say anything about her, but the woman creeps me out! I make sure that my pokémon are with me, hidden in my gloves before checking that I have everything else.

I glare at Jerry for daring to tell me that teleporting makes people appear naked on the other end. He laughs when he realises just what I'm silently accusing him of and then explains it to Ali. She punches him on the arm, which makes me like her a little more, but then she snorts and starts laughing.

"How long before our boat leaves?" I ask them.

"An hour," Jerry says. He's insisting on coming with us, just because he was in Kanto when he had to come all the way to Unova to meet me. Of course, Ali's coming too now that she knows she's getting training with karate monks or whatever they are. Whatever Jerry got off Roark as a reward, he's not telling us, which just makes me glare at him until he decides to tell.

Ali laughs and tells me it's because Jerry's reward was a kiss. I giggle as Jerry turns bright red and accuses us both of being gross because as if he'd ever want that from Roark. He nearly reveals what his actual reward was, but as soon as he's about to he goes silent, smirks and tells us both that we'll just have to wait and find out.

As they start talking about buying supplies and other boring stuff like that, I tell them that I'm going outside to try and train my pokémon a little. Sure, I'll have the entire three weeks on the boat to do that, but it's different out in the snow when neither of my pokémon like it.

As I walk outside and the bitter wind hits me like a hammer, I realise how strange it is that I'm actually willingly going out and training my pokémon. I shrug to myself and think nothing more of it as I trudge through the snow and try to find the place that Connor and I were training in ages ago.

Predictably, I can't find it. I sigh and decide that I might as well stay within the city in that case. The lights of a big department store illuminate the entire street, letting me see people huddled in thick clothes as they try and make their way home. I wonder just why the people don't clear away all the snow so that they can actually _walk_ down the road, but as I stop and watch the snow I see it starting to build up a few inches more, right in front of my eyes. I don't know how they're actually keeping it level if it builds up so fast, but I realise that they're not likely to ever keep it away from the roads.

At least it gets rid of all the maniacs and their cars. I can't count the amount of times some _moron_ sped down the road back home and nearly killed someone or something. Once or twice they drove straight into a trainer's pokémon and… it didn't end well. Turns out driving straight into an aggron isn't exactly healthy for your car.

Then the aggron eats the wreckage afterwards, so you don't even have a car left.

As I walk down the streets, I find a little restaurant that doesn't seem to have many customers. The smell of spicy food drifts out of the place and makes my mouth water. I glance at the windows and see the huge sign in the door _"No Trainers. No pokémon."_

Jerks.

I'm about to leave when I hear a _huge_ argument coming from inside. Someone's screaming something in another language and it's making all the customers and even the staff leave their places and follow it.

Naturally, I do exactly the same.

The warmth washes over me almost instantly and I'm sorely tempted to take off my coat and scarf. But I don't, simply because I don't want to have to go through trying to put them all on again. The people in here are all dressed ridiculously, all fancy and in suits and long dresses, which has to be one of the stupidest things ever, because how are they going to walk outside in silly clothes like that?

I follow the sounds of the shouts to find they're coming from the kitchen. A chef in completely white clothes tries to get rid of us, but the curious customers manage to get past him without any effort. I merge in the middle of all of them to find that all the noise is coming from the freezer.

Inside is a large man with a thick moustache and really hairy arms. I see everything inside frozen into one large ice block and a tiny little thing that has to be a pokémon happily skating across all the ice.

"What is that?" I wonder aloud.

People glance at me as if seeing me for the first time. They all look between each other, seemingly offended that I'm dressed like such a ruffian and in their posh little restaurant. As they start whispering between themselves, I pout and stamp my foot on the floor.

"Daddy? Daddy where _are_ you?" I shout in the most annoying voice I can manage. "Daddy you have to get me one of those pokémon right _now_!"

That seems to make everyone more at ease with me. They don't look at me with as much scorn now, instead seeing me as a spoilt little brat that has to belong to someone else.

"It's a snorunt," the waiter tells me. He's old, with grey hair that _has_ to be a wig, but I decide I like him. He then goes back to trying to herd everyone out, but their cries of protest seem to stop him. Finally, red faced he tells them all that they'll be charged double for coming into the kitchens if they don't get out straight away.

_That_ seems to clear them out. Meanwhile the chef is still shouting at the snorunt, up until the moment it chortles and blows ice in his face. I burst out laughing at his shocked expression and the way the ice is melting from his moustache.

"I'm afraid you'll have to leave here now, Miss," the waiter I like says. I nod, but instead of leaving I march right up to the freezer and look at the snorunt.

"I'm taking this pokémon," I tell them in the most obnoxious voice I can think of. "My daddy will pay for it if it belongs to anyone in here."

The chef says something in a language I don't understand. He leaps for the snorunt, but it's far faster than him. It twirls around on the ice, blasts his butt with more ice and runs out of the freezer, laughing all the while.

It bumps into my leg, looks up at me and offers me what I think is a smile. Then it spins out of my way, jumps up on the kitchen counters and steals a thick piece of steak right from underneath the chef's nose! It runs along the counters, steak in its mouth and laughing as the chefs grab knifes and chase after it, cursing it in strange languages.

"Out of my way!" I scream at them as I try to catch the pokémon first. It becomes a fun game of cat and mouse, trying to find the pokémon and avoiding angry chefs and the things they're throwing at the pokémon. Finally someone grabs me around the waist and I scream as I'm lifted from the floor and my feet are too far away to touch anything and _these chefs are crazy and they're going to put me in a pot and eat me!_

"Out!" a voice shouts in my ear. I see him kick the snorunt out of the back door and into the snow outside. Before I can even scream or kick the man, he throws me into the snow and I'm rewarded with a mouthful of white slush.

"We don't want you or your family in here!" the hairy chef shouts at me.

I throw my hair out of my face, spit out snow and glare at him. "Well my family wouldn't eat here anyway, because you're all a bunch of _assfaces!"_

He slams the door shut with a huff. I glare at the door a moment longer, sat alone in the snow until I feel something nudge my hand. I look down and see the snorunt, still with the steak hanging from its mouth.

"I'm gonna call you Cassie," I tell it. It doesn't object. Instead it sits beside me, eating the steak and whispering things that I can't even begin to understand.


	11. Inevitable Partings

_Dear Diary,_

_I acquired badges. They are not as powerful as I had thought. I need to investigate on this further. I have found people who know much about them. Their answers have not been what one could call informative._

_Experience has taught me that torture works well on uncovering secrets that one wants to remain hidden._

_I need the answers, but can't help but wonder if doing so will make me no better than __**them**__._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Inevitable Partings|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

Pickles are strange little creations. I seem to be eating nothing but pickles lately – everything else the ship serves is _gross._ Jerry and Ali make me eat other food because they're evil like that, but I always somehow end up with a jar of pickles by the end of the night.

Mostly because Mandy manages to somehow steal them from the boat's kitchen. I'm not sure how many jars they even have left, but they have to be running low by now. My vullaby seems to enjoy the pickle juice – it drinks whatever's left over after I've munched my way through the entire contents of the jar. I constantly see Kiki hovering just in the corner of my eye, judging me for not eating properly. It's like my parents are here on my journey with me, what with everyone keep telling me what I have to eat!

At least Cassie doesn't. I'm not even sure _what_ it happens to do most days, but it doesn't try to make me do stuff and that's good enough for me.

I sigh as I lean my chin against the cold metal railings on the ship and watch nothing but ocean – endless, constant, _boring_ ocean – drift lazily past. I've lost count of the days I've been on this ship now. At first I was excited, because it's _Kanto_ and there's all sorts of stories of people from there, like Trainer Red and all the Rockets. I know I shouldn't think the Rockets are cool, but they nearly took over an entire country! Jerry says they owned it at one point – having someone in every place there could ever be. He says they only fell apart because everything went public because of the Colour Trainers; three trainers from Pallet Town who ended up helping and exposing Giovanni.

I frown a little to myself. I want to be known throughout the entire world, but maybe not with a name as stupid as a colour. I can use my own name. I'll be the queen of history – everyone will come to me to have their questions answered and I will know everything and anything that happened. _Ever_.

But right now, that dream seems even more distant, considering I can't even _see _land. I can't remember when the ice all melted away and let us know we weren't in Snowpoint or even _Sinnoh_ anymore. Now we're just ploughing away at the ocean until we finally get to Kanto.

I can't believe I'm even thinking it, but I miss being able to sleep in a tent in the middle of nowhere. I miss wandering aimlessly, getting lost and then laughing around a campfire as Kiki gets marshmallows stuck in all of its needles.

Someone pokes me in the shoulder. Somehow I know it's Jerry, even before I look up and see him staring at me.

"Your snorunt is doing it again."

I sigh and lean a bit further over the railing. Maybe if it looks like I'm about to fall off through boredom, he can let Annie out and then it can teleport us all to Kanto.

"Cassie isn't doing anything wrong," I say.

"I know that." Jerry leans his arms down against the railings I'm barely able to rest my chin comfortably on. "But it's _weird._"

"You're weird!" I shoot back without even thinking about it. "Cassie is fine. Let it do what it wants."

"And if it involves _that?_" Jerry points to behind us. I see that Cassie has followed me out into the deck, but it remains hidden in the shadows. Instead of standing still it weaves a little dance, bobbing, twisting and looking altogether like it belongs in the middle of a bunch of dads at a wedding. Cassie makes little mumbles as it dances, breathing tiny bits of frost over the deck to make its feet slip and slide everywhere.

"I'm sure it's nothing weird," I say, even though I'm slightly concerned for my pokémon's sanity. I think there must have been something in the steak Cassie ate when I found her. Those chefs were all _creepy!_ I bet they did something to all the food to make all the people go insane and keep going back to eat in their snooty restaurant!

"I think it's a rain dance."

I glare at Jerry. "Don't be stupid. Cassie can't summon rain… can it?"

He leaves instead of answering me, so I'm left all alone with only a dancing snorunt that's potentially summoning a thunderstorm as company.

Boats _suck._

**-O-O-O-**

I find myself in the training area below deck more and more. It's pretty cool – it's got padded walls that are all fluffy and bouncy! I spent most of the first few days just bouncing off of them because it was so much fun. After I watched a boy copy me, bounce off too hard and crack his head open on the floor though, I've kind of stopped.

At least, when there's not anything soft and comfy on the floor to catch my face.

There's nothing but wooden boards over the floor today, which means it's another day of me training my pokémon. There's a sailor that sits on something like a lifeguard chair, watching over everything. We're not allowed to have pokémon battles on the ship, which is _so_ boring, but it makes sense because if something misses and blows a hole in the ship, we're all going to drown and seeing as I haven't yet discovered my ability to breathe water, I don't exactly want to have to swim for days and days just to stay alive.

The sailor watches everyone in the training room constantly. He has to make sure that our pokémon don't blow holes in the walls or anything like that. Most people grumble and complain about it all, but Ali and I have decided it's pretty good training for our pokémon – it's like target practice, in a way. Make sure you hit only what you're supposed to, otherwise bad stuff will happen. Given the amount of times people watch pokémon battle without a psychic barrier or glass between them and the pokémon, at least our pokémon are better at not shooting off stray attacks and taking people's faces off.

Or at least, that's the main point of all of this. A little part of me thinks it would be _so_ cool if one of Kiki's needles flew away and poked someone in the face and then their head exploded! Obviously I'd have an umbrella ready so that I wouldn't get showered in blood and guts and grossness. I'd have something with really long, flowy sleeves that I could hide the umbrella under! That way when I needed it, I could just flick my wrist and out would pop the umbrella! It would be _awesome_ and everyone would think that I'm magic.

Until that day happens, I stick with having Kiki and Cassie do target practice with the mannequins. Kiki has more targets to hit and different shapes, with an order to it too, whilst I've gone a bit easier on Cassie. I've seen videos of one of the Elites from Kanto – Lorelei, or something – and how her pokémon manage to freeze _fire;_ as in the flame is still burning, inside the ice but the ice isn't melting! I want Cassie to be able to do that, but in the mean time I'll settle for it being able to shoot ice in a straight line.

Meanwhile, I have Mandy perched above a lamp and trying to cloak it in darkness. Every so often the light flickers, but it still shines brighter than anything. I'm reminded of the hundreds of gastly in Eterna and how they reacted with blasted with darkness. Ryan's friend's drapion made it seem so effortless to cloak the day under shrouds of night. I want Mandy to be able to do the same – then it can cloak and entire battlefield in darkness and just attack things while they can't see her! It's not cheating unless I give Mandy a weapon to beat things up with. Or if I run in under the cover of darkness and beat up the pokémon.

Given that most of the pokémon trainers use against me though, I don't think I'm going to try and fight them myself any time soon. I might be awesome, but I don't think I stand a chance of being able to punch an ursaring into submission. If I had a sword I would be even more awesome, but most swords are bigger than me so I don't think I'd even be able to lift it to cut an angry bear into pieces.

Ali and all of her pokémon are in the corner of the room, practising weights. All except for Nina, who still has both arms in casts. The heracross just runs through what seems to be fighting stances and looks like its learning to rely more on its horn and legs. I wonder when my pokémon will start to make such noticeable improvements so quickly, but Ali tells me constantly that since I'm always with them, I'm not going to notice it. I don't quite understand that logic, because _surely_ if I'm with them all the time, I'd have to notice every improvement they make?

Aside from me, Ali and the sailor on his high chair, there's only two other people in here. There's an old man who keeps staring at some woman's butt. She's the only other trainer here and I'm pretty sure I have knickers that are larger than her shorts. The creepy old man has almost no hair and what he does have has been combed over and reminds me of stringy cheese left between slices of pizza. If he stares any harder at that woman's butt, I'm pretty sure he's going to have a heart attack or something.

The woman doesn't seem to mind it. She's busy training a big mushroom with dead white eyes and huge crab claws. I've only seen her notice the man staring at her once – she threatened him with her tyranitar. I had to look up what one of those was on my pokédex.

I want one. I'm not sure how I'll train it, given that it's like a _billion_ times taller than me, but I want to train one and have it eat any creepy old people that think of staring at _my_ butt when I'm that woman's age.

Why do people stare at other people's butts though? There can't be anything that interesting there – it's just something to sit on. I ask Ali and she turns as red as her pignite's flames.

"Well…" she says. She's so uncomfortable with this question and I just want to know why even more. "I mean… you'll understand when you're older. Some people just have really nice asses that you just want to squeeze."

I try to look over my shoulder at my own butt. I don't get the appeal. "People are weird," I tell Ali. She doesn't argue. "That creepy old man is staring at that woman again."

Ali laughs. "He's going to end up with his eyeballs missing soon enough." She glances over at him, sees that he doesn't notice _anyone_ else in the room and pulls a face. "I really hope that those are League-issue poké balls that he's playing with there."

I decide that's something I don't want to understand.

"How long until we get to Kanto?" I ask. "I'm bored of this ship."

"Tell me about it," Ali groans. She flops down against a big rack of metal poles with huge discs on the end of them. Her hitmon-_something_ picks up a bar and begins lifting it up and down and up and down. Jude snorts as it sits beside her, making little squeaky oinking sounds as it sniffs around the floor. "I just want to get off this boat, head through to Saffron and see if Roark was serious about this offer."

"I think he was," I say, though I don't know for certain. "I want to be able to get more badges. I need to do a _test_ for Blaine though," I mutter, poking out my tongue in disgust. "I'm not sure about the other one though."

Ali looks at me as if she's just realised something important. "I guess that means when we get to Saffron, we won't be travelling together for a while, huh?"

The realisation of that hits me like a physical blow. I feel like someone's kicked the back of my legs and I fall to the floor, suddenly lost. What am I going to do? Sure, I've wandered off on my own before and threatened to ditch them, but Ali and Jerry have been with me for what feels like _always_. I can travel on my own, but I don't really _want_ to because Jerry's my brother – even if he is _really_ annoying and thinks he knows everything – and Ali's like the big sister I've always wanted but my parents told me was impossible to have.

"Hey," Ali says, moving over to me and throwing her arm around me shoulders, "don't pull that face! I'm only going to be training there for a little while! And our boat's dropping us off in Pallet – we've got a good week or two's hike before we get to Saffron. No matter what, I'll be around for you to talk to – by call or by text. You're not going to be able to get rid of me so easily."

I sniff, trying my best to hold in a sudden flux of feelings. "Promise?"

She holds out her pinkie finger. "Promise."

**-O-O-O-**

For as long as people have been able to record, Vermillion has been a harbour and one of the most important cities in Kanto. Warships have been deployed from their docks and sent in to rescue fleets and secure victory. Ancient royal families used to disembark and arrive within Vermillion harbour. Even though they try and cover it up now, Vermillion also used to be the biggest slaving hub in Kanjo – they would take in thousands of Sinnoan slaves and move them throughout Kanto to the richest and most powerful families.

Now it's pretty much the same, except the slaving ships have been replaced with boats full of trainers – which some people (Plasma fanatics, mostly) argue are the same thing – and of course, hundreds of boats that contain stuff people shouldn't be trying to sell or even make. Vermillion is where the Rockets first came to power, or at least, that's what people say. Whilst their main publically acknowledged bases were in places like Saffron, Celadon and Viridian, they started off as nothing more than a small family run gang that secured the docks and a few warehouses before they moved up and into the world.

Before we're even within Vermillion's official waters, I can see the warehouses that line the water front. The docks are filled with loads of freight containers that are _huge_ and could probably fit a gyarados or two within! Jerry tells me that one or two probably _do_ have pokémon hidden inside, waiting to be distributed all over the world to rich or evil people. If it wasn't for the fact that Vermillion was so infamous for such a thing, I wouldn't believe him.

As it stands, I kinda want to sneak into the docks and rescue a gyarados. Then it can become my faithful companion and destroy _everything_that gets in my way! I won't have to worry about creepy government people trying to take away me or my family because I'll have a gyarados that will just eat them all!

The cargo containers form rows upon rows of rusty and silvery colours. Even from a distance I can see the shapes of machoke lighting all the heavy stuff and tauros and rhyhorn being used to pull all the heavy machinery around. There's a few smaller, human shapes mixed in between them – I suppose it's because no one's managed to teach a machoke how to use a screwdriver without breaking the wall it's trying to attach the screw to.

Near the water front I can see a massive white roofed stadium. Written across the side in bright blue neon is, _'Gym'_. Muffled as it is, I can still hear the sounds of battles and crackling electricity. Everyone knows about Surge and his insane gym – he makes trainers _and_ their pokémon go through army-style training before he'll even see them. And then, whilst people are battling there's _huge_ pylons that zap things with electricity randomly! It's completely mad – I've seen it on tv before when even the _trainers_had been attacked by random bolts of electricity. People have been trying to get Surge to stop and change it all for ages, but the League says that he's helping to train people for everything they'll encounter in the wild, so they let him carry on.

"I still need to battle Surge," Jerry says. He makes a grumpy face. "I really don't want to have to try my hand at his whole army bootcamp thing. Why can't he just be normal and have a standard 'book a time, have a battle' sort of deal?"

Ali smirks at him. "Wuss."

It's pretty amazing how quickly he turns red. "I'm not!"

She pokes her tongue out at him. "You so are."

As they argue between each other, I start to hum really annoying songs. Even though I'm not actually singing the words, they both glare at me as if I am. I smile impishly at them both, humming even louder and making sure that _everyone_ around me can hear it!

I need to teach my pokémon to sing _Love is in the Air. _Or at least Annie. I think it has to be capable of speaking into minds – it's a ghost, after all. Either way, so long as that even if I'm not around Jerry, he'll constantly hear that song playing and playing in his head until he's crazy enough to live in one of those mental houses.

"So what's the plan?" Ali asks. "It's about a week's hike to Saffron from here and my internship or whatever it's called doesn't actually start until I get there."

I shrug. "I have to go to Cinnabar. And somewhere else. I frown and check my map. It shows me a little splodge of a town somewhere near Lavender. "And here," I say, pointing to my map. "That's the ghost gym. I have to fight the leader there as well."

"I've already got the badges from Pewter and Cerulean," Jerry says. "We can just always relax for a little bit?"

"I don't know about you, but after this boat trip, I'm kind of bored of relaxing," Ali groans. She stretches, her back popping as she does so. "We should just kick some ass somewhere. Or learn free running. Then we can pretend that we're in those slaving times and race across all the rooftops in Vermillion. Possibly without leaping down and killing anyone with hidden blades though."

"But-!" I protest, though they don't seem to want to hear the _actual_ version of history. Weirdoes. I cross my arms and glare at them both as they continue to make plans and silly jokes as if I'm nothing but a shadow that's following them around.

Well fine then, _jerks_. If you're going to just ignore me, then I'm going to stand here and hum really, _really_ loudly until you finally take notice of me!

"If you don't stop humming that tune, I'm going to throw you overboard," Jerry mutters.

I give him the best innocent face I can muster. "We should explore the catacombs beneath Vermillion!" I declare. "They used them all the time for smuggling and everything! They're all boarded up and everything, unlike in Cerulean where all the weird pokémon and hobos live."

Jerry makes a face. "I don't think that idea sounds particularly safe."

"Uh, _hello_?" I say, waving a hand in his face. "I have a pokémon that can freeze people to death and another that can shoot needles from its body. I'm still making it be able to shoot them with enough power to make people's heads explode, but _still_ – they're dangerous!"

Ali shakes her head. "Your brother's right. Weird people hang out in places like that. The last thing we want to do is creep down there and get abducted by some creep who thinks he can sell us for drugs. Or we somehow come across the entrance to Rapture."

"What's that?" I ask.

Jerry shrugs. "A place full of insane zombie-like people and magic powers."

I'm assaulted instantly by images of Eterna and all its gastly-zombies, except now they have the power to breathe fire and shoot lightning from their fingertips.

Yeah, I'm so totally not going to be able to sleep tonight.

**-O-O-O-**

Vermillion smells like fish. It's something that I've noticed and since then, I've been _really_ hard pressed to try and ignore it. It's not even like magikarp level of fishy smell – it's like someone's diced them up, cooked them in fish oil and then left it to go all rotten for like a week. Then again, I think I read somewhere that somewhere in the Sevii Isles eats something like that as a delicacy. They have to open the tin underwater to make sure that the smell doesn't overtake _everything_ and leave everyone wanting to run away in fear.

If I liked ships or anything to do with the sea, I'd totally love Vermillion. As it stands, there's nothing here but ships, museums of ships, old skeletons of ships and people that talk about nothing but ships. There's also _tonnes_ of fish, but I'm really starting to be sick of the sight of them and their confused little faces. It's like they don't quite understand that they're dead because they're too busy staring at the sky and wondering where all the water went.

I'm about to write off Vermillion as totally and utterly _boring_ when I see a sign that pretty much makes my heart stop then and there.

"Guys, _guys!_" I shout, grabbing their sleeves and pulling them towards the bookstore. It's old and decorated with black paint and there's loads of books in the display, but they're all boring and funky looking and who cares because _Cynthia is going to be nearby!_

"What day are we on?" I demand of them both. I know I started travelling sometime in July but holy crap all the days and weeks have blurred into one and what month is it anyway?

"Third of September?" Jerry reads, tilting his head. He frowns a little, pulls out his pokédex and grunts a surprised sound. "That's today."

"_Oh my god!"_ I squeal in a voice that _has_ to only be heard by pokémon. "I've got to see her! She's awesome and holy crap she's here and I've got to see her!" I'm practically pulling Jerry to the floor by his sleeves. "She's going to be giving a talk near Diglett's Cave! That's awesome! I'm gonna go! Tell me I'm allowed to go! I'm going to go even if you say I'm not allowed!"

I drop his sleeve – considerably stretched as it is – and scratch my head. "Where's Diglett's Cave?"

He smiles at me. "East of Vermillion."

I don't even wait for him to finish talking before I'm already running there. Who cares if I'm going to be early by a few hours? _Cynthia_ is going to be there!

**-O-O-O-**

By the time I get to Diglett's Cave – and I so totally didn't get lost on the way, no matter what those people said – there's already a crowd of people stood around and waiting. I see reporters all covering their faces in makeup and trying their best to look pretty before the cameras start rolling. I don't even know why _that_ woman is even attempting to put make up on, because her face is nothing but wrinkles and I'm pretty sure she's wearing a wig to cover nothing but a huge bald head.

I call Mandy out of its poké ball and have it sit on my shoulder. I whisper my plan conspiringly and watch as my vullaby takes flight. It waits right up until the wrinkly reporter starts speaking into the camera, squawks and dives down on her head! She screams, the cameraman screams and there's trainers all around her letting out their pokémon but Mandy just cackles as it pulls free the woman's wig and flutters to me, cackling all the while.

It's at that moment that we realise that the woman isn't actually a woman, but is in fact a man with a strangely pretty face. He screams a girly scream and flees off into the distance of the town, shrieking sobs all the while as another reporter decides to follow him, shouting words into a microphone all the while.

Mandy cackles as it lands on my shoulder and drops a wig and bits of a fake, womanly face into my hands. I throw them away as if they're diseased. People around me start cheering and applauding for me. My face goes bright red, but people are telling me how amazing Mandy is and that they want one of their own and what is it and where can they catch one.

I tell them all Mandy's not for sale or trade. Jerry would never forgive me if I got rid of it. More than that, I've actually come to like the little demon bird. I'm not sure if I'll ever find any other pokémon that's able to be as evil as it whilst still being so nice to me.

It's at that moment that I hear heels_ clacking_ along the path behind me. I can hear all the reporters screaming out questions and the constant _flash, flash, flash_ of cameras goes off continuously over the sounds of questions.

My heart is hammering before I even spin around and see _Cynthia_ walking towards us! She has a big blue dog-thing that walks on two legs that I'm pretty sure is a lucario that growls at all the reporter people and then its eyes shine blue and _all_ the reporters cameras blow up!

I want one of those pokémon. Mandy can only steal the cameras whilst Cassie might be able to freeze them, but neither of them can make cameras _explode_!

Cynthia spares me a smile. My heart's pounding and pounding as she stops in front of me, sees the remains of the wig and the pretty face on the floor and laughs a tiny, posh laugh under her breath. "You have a very creative vullaby. I theorise that if she spends half as much time training as she does pulling such pranks, she will end up as a beautiful, strong specimen of the species."

I think I end up squealing because Cynthia just told me that Mandy is awesome and that it's going to be strong and _ohmygod Cynthia just spoke to me and even smiled and this day is just beyond awesome! _I jump up and down in excitement as Cynthia strides towards the entrance of Diglett's Cave. Her lucario walks behind her and people clear the way for both of them. She stops and says a few things to other people but it doesn't matter because she spoke to _me_ first and that makes me totally amazing!

"Cynthia said you're going to end up strong!" I say, taking Mandy into my arms and rubbing its featherless face. It squawks, hops out of my arms and instead stands on them, claws digging just slightly into the fabric of my coat. It spins its head at me, regards me with one large, beady eye and then turns back to face the crowd, gets bored and then begins preening.

People begin whispering between themselves. I inch myself closer to them all, squeeze through them and manage to end up near the front of the crowd, able to see everything perfectly.

"She looks older than I thought," someone near me whispers.

"Duh," another person answers. "Isn't she like forty now? She was around in Sinnoh when _that_ thing happened. She's got to be fifty soon."

"Really?" the first person whispers back. "I thought she looked about thirty."

"Some people age well."

"Shit, _fifty_? I feel wrong now for thinking she's hot."

I decide to stop listening to them after that. I stand on my tiptoes and see Cynthia clearing her throat, keeping a little smile on her face as the reporters find cameras that somehow weren't blown up and start flashing and filming away.

Her lucario's eyes shine blue just before she starts speaking. "Welcome everyone and thank you for joining me here today."

She sounds like she's speaking right next to me! I guess it has to be because of her lucario, but that's another reason for why I have to get one! Cynthia's voice is soft and more posh than I would have thought – she sounds like she went to one of those schools where only the really smart and rich people get to go to. She doesn't sound like she thinks she's better than everyone though, which makes me like her a little bit more.

"Now, Diglett's Cave is known to most people in Kanto because it's one of the few places that you'll be able to find feral diglett and dugtrio. Given the nature of these pokémon, this is also quite the blessing. Of course, that doesn't stop trainers from using it as a shortcut to and from Pewter and Vermillion."

She smiles as nervous laughter claims a few people. "Of course, I didn't come here today to speak about pokémon and how people train them. Although I am a trainer, that is not where my true passion lies. I came here to talk to you about the history of Diglett's Cave – the myths associated with them." She clasps her hands together. "I love myths; both human and pokémon. What are they, if not the beliefs that people once held? Most are religions, now left in dust, because no one wishes to practice them anymore. Perhaps in a hundred years, the religions we now practice will be looked upon as myths by our grandchildren's grandchildren. The future will always be uncertain, but the past is a mystery that we can uncover.

"It's commonly accepted as a fact that Diglett's Cave was constructed by said pokémon. No one can argue that fact. The myths pervade towards the use of the tunnels by our distant ancestors."

She walks back to the front of the cave. There's metal girders that hold up the sides of the cave mouth and flags that cover its roof, marking it out as Diglett's Cave. Next to her is a sign that details all the boring things about monsters and gremlins that might hide in the tunnels. Of course we all know that it's only going to be a few pokémon and the occasional trainer, but people sometimes seem more freaked out by make believe monsters rather than actual scary pokémon. I think it's because they're _weird_.

"There are words inscribed on the mouth of the cave here," Cynthia says as she passes her hand over it. "Many of you will have never noticed this, even if you travel through here regularly. They are written in the ancient script of unown – the script on which our own language was based.

" '_Ut__tuto__per__te__placemus__deos__prius__'_ – translated roughly into our own language, it means 'To pass through here safely, you must first appease the gods'." She tucks her long blonde hair behind the black fur of her collar and smiles at us. "Of course, the translation could be more accurate, if the letters had not eroded and if my own skills in the unown language were remarkably better."

People laugh at that. I just frown in confusion, wondering what's so funny.

"So the question this poses us is what could they mean by appeasing the gods? Obviously the first thing that springs to mind is a sacrifice. Of course, if ancient people sacrificed each other as often as we thought, they would have not survived for as long as they did. Sometimes appeasing the gods meant leaving a banquet of food. Other times, it could be something important to the people – a weapon, a boat or a tool. It could have even been something like poetry."

I laugh to myself as I think about the only poem I know. _Roses are red, violets are blue. I've got chlamydia and now so do you!_ Jerry taught me it ages ago and never decided to explain to me just what it means. He doesn't know that I found out for myself – granted only because I said it in front of my parents and they told me what it means, but he doesn't have to know that's how! He can just think that I'm amazing and found it all out for myself.

Cynthia taps the words once more. "This is the sort of research that occurs most often. It's not the most glamorous thing in the world – when people think of history and ruins, they tend to think more _Lara Croft_ than library studies. Many of you here will already be thinking of careers outside of pokémon training. What I aim to teach you through this is a simple thing, yet of immeasurable value; jobs are not always what they appear to be on television or on film. There are boring parts to each and every job. But as long as you choose one that you enjoy and love, be it an accountant, a painter, a historian or a professional trainer, you will not regret it."

She curtsies as people start to applaud. Reporters start screaming questions at her, but her lucario's eyes glow blue once more. Mandy shrieks out of nowhere and leaps at my head, clamping down its wings around my skull. I watch as a ghostly vision of Cynthia and her lucario walk through the crowd, passing us all by and walking off into the distance. The reporters all chase after the ghost-Cynthia, whilst a few trainers follow and fewer still remain in front of Diglett's Cave. They all approach the cave, squint to see the writing and then slowly move away.

None of them seem to notice that Cynthia really actually never moved. She's still investigating the ruin, with her lucario by her side and its eyes slowly dimming back to a normal brown colour.

"So, is it adaptation, luck or skill that leaves you here, still watching me?"

I take a moment to realise that there's no one else here and once more, Cynthia is talking to _me_. My mouth goes all dry and I have to swallow a couple of times to make the horrible feeling go away. All the while Cynthia keeps investigating the cave mouth, but I somehow know that she's smiling, even though her back is turned to me.

"I… don't know?" I answer truthfully.

She turns slowly to face me. I think back to what people were saying earlier – there's _no way_ that she's nearly fifty! My nan is in her fifties and she looks _way_ older than her! Of course, my grandma is older than Nan and she looks younger than her, but I still find it hard to believe that Cynthia's as old as people said she was! I know all about her history and how long ago it happened, but it seems like she hasn't aged at all.

She smiles at me. Unlike the fake smiles she gave all the reporter people, this one seems more genuine. "It seems that your vullaby is far smarter than I gave her credit for."

"Who, Mandy?" I say, moving its wings from around my head. Each time I try to move one, it squawks and slaps them back in place. I wonder just what's happening when I manage to move one a little further than before and feel like I've suddenly gone all dizzy and the world is out of focus and just _weird_. As soon as Mandy slaps its wings back around my head, everything turns normal again.

"Yes," Cynthia says. "It seems that she's able to block out Inti's psychic projections rather well. Most of the time even creatures of darkness are fooled by his projections. Obviously she is stronger than I first suspected. I wonder, was she a wild creature, or was she bred with good heritage behind her?"

I blink. Heritage? It just makes me think of the little groups of old men who call themselves heritage groups that go around protecting rocks because they might once have been cottages that someone famous might have once walked passed.

"My brother gave Mandy to me," I say. "I'm not sure how he caught it, but I can ask him to find out."

"Don't worry," Cynthia says. "A pokémon's heritage doesn't matter – it's what the pokémon itself acts like that counts. On that note, I have to wonder why you refer to her without a gender?"

I shrug. "Because Mandy's a pokémon. It's an _it._"

"And have you seen certain pokémon like machop and hitmonchan? You cannot say they don't have similar parts to humans."

I'm reminded of Jerry's throh and its flashing habits. "Well yeah but, it's not like they can talk or anything."

At that moment, Mandy takes its wings off my head and the lucario's eyes shine blue.

"_Where is the need to talk, when this method of communication is available?"_

A man's voice. A man's voice, in my head! I nearly scream with the shock of it, but somehow I _know_ it's the lucario, even though I totally wouldn't think it sounds as posh as that and like that butler out of that cartoon Jerry used to watch with that man who dresses up like a bat and beats up bad guys!

Cynthia smiles, as if she knows what's just happened. "So, might I ask why you came to visit my speech today?"

My chest puffs with pride. "I want to study history," I tell her. "I wanted to go to this big school in Unova, but I couldn't because some stuff happened, so now I'm going travelling to earn enough badges to go to a different school. But that means I have to get specific badges, which is kinda annoying, but it means I get to travel _everywhere_ which is pretty cool!"

"And is this school the one in Anville Town in Unova?"

I gasp straight away. I know that Lenora told me that Cynthia teaches there, but it's one thing to hear it from her and another to have Cynthia mention the school to me! "You teach there, don't you?"

"I do," Cynthia says. "Well then, I can only wish you luck. I suspect that we will meet again sometime soon."

My smile nearly takes over my face once more. "Really?"

"Yes," she says as her lucario nods along with her. "After all, I'm one of the people that conduct your interview."

I watch her walk away from me – this time for real – with nothing but awe swimming through me. I'm that amazed that it actually takes me until Cynthia's disappeared to realise that to get into my school that I want to go to, I have to do an _interview!_

Lenora never mentioned this! If she wasn't so awesome, I would totally hate her.

The gravel crunches behind me and even though I know I've just watched her walk away, I'm convinced for a split second that it's Cynthia. Instead I realise that it's merely my brother and Ali, both of whom seem amazed to have seen Cynthia. But that's all they got to do, while I got to talk to her! _Twice!_

And I completely forgot to ask her to sign my book.

Foongus.

Maybe if I run _really_ fast, I might be able to catch up with her? But she's got that lucario with her that can talk into people's minds, so surely it can teleport to different places too. If it can, that means I'll have no hope of finding her ever again until I have to go and do the _interview_ for my new school!

"Did you have fun?" Jerry asks me, grinning like he already knows that I did.

"It was awesome!" I declare.

"We figured you'd say as much," Ali says. "That's why we hung back and let you talk to her. You're getting quite high up in the charts, aren't you? First Lenora and now Cynthia. If you manage to bump into someone like Alder next, I'm hanging round you, because you'll have to be the chosen one that receives magic powers when the world gets overrun by zombies." A far off look crosses her face before she wipes it away with a grimace. "Again."

I entertain them with stories about Cynthia and what she was saying about Diglett's Cave and Mandy too. Mandy squawks along with my story, though mostly the parts where I mention about Cynthia talking about it. As we walk back into Vermillion and the smell of fish hits me like a punch, I find myself able to follow the signs and roads to the pokémon centre easily. It's weird.

It takes about twenty minutes to cross through Vermillion. The pokémon centre is in the middle of a big street, its big, bright red roof standing out against the little shops that sell antiques and little trinkets. The road ends on a bend where I see a long black car with tinted windows just like those they use on tv when they're stalking out bad guys.

I mentioned it to Ali and Jerry and begin to wonder who they could be stalking after. I bet it's someone famous! Or someone really weird, like some old lady that wants to make bracelets out of nidoran teeth or something. Somehow I doubt that they're there to do anything about the fishy smell that seems to be _everywhere_. I so hope that when I leave here, my clothes don't smell like it. I think I might cry. Or possibly get attacked by all the wild meowth nearby. Or both.

"You don't think there's clowders of wild meowth anywhere nearby, do you?"

This is why I like Ali. She says exactly what I'm thinking.

**-O-O-O-**

I'm starting to believe that maybe Jerry's right about Cassie.

It sits there, staring out into _nothing_ in front of the little stream that runs through most of Route 6. Even with our tents nearby and a campfire burning, it seems oblivious to all of us.

Out of curiosity, I poke Cassie. It falls face-first into the stream.

I shriek as the water splashes over me and my pokémon doesn't move at all. The first thing I manage to think is that I've killed it, yet I can see bubbles frothing up around it, which means that it has to be alive! It's just… not moving in the water. It bobs up and down on the surface, floating but not doing anything else.

I have to wade in to rescue it. When I do, Cassie chortles happily, blows a frosty breath between us that makes the air seem to sparkle, then leaps out of my arms and dances around the campfire. Kiki glares at it for even attempting to go near the burning orange flames, whilst Mandy just happily fluffs itself nearby, occasionally blowing an ember or two in Kiki's direction.

I'm the only one with all my pokémon out. Ali just has Cap and Muay, which I've realised has to be a hitmontop, because they're the only things that my pokédex says happen to be upside down almost all the time. I want to try and imitate it, but I know that I'll just end up with head rush and then I'll be dizzy for way too long and probably be sick in the bushes somewhere.

Ali barely ever seems to train it though. I always see her with Cap or Jude or even Nina. I want to ask why, but something stops me from saying anything, because maybe it's ill or something. If I was spinning around on my head all the time, I'd be ill too.

Elizabeth is sat on the floor near Jerry. Occasionally one or two of its heads will look over at Mandy and start a conversation. Jerry always calls them by different names and I know that they've all got a different colour feather on top of their heads, but they all look the same except for the stupid head which I'm sure changes by day. He grins stupidly as he reminds me that there's Ella, Liza and Beth, or Elizabeth altogether. Each time he's rewarded with a sarcastic clap from Ali that I think he hasn't realised is sarcastic. Annie floats emotionlessly in the shadows behind our tents, invisible save for the glowing red eyes and golden zipper-mouth. Even after growing up with it occasionally watching over me, it's still ridiculously creepy.

"So I've been meaning to ask," Jerry says randomly and I'm suddenly struck with the urge to leap across the fire at him, knock him off the log he's sat on and hold my hands over his mouth to stop him from talking. "You mentioned you had two tyrogue. How comes we barely ever see them outside their poké balls?"

The pain that crosses Ali's face is bad enough that for a moment I think she's just cut herself. "Muay and Tai were twins," she says. "Happens sometimes." Her hitmontop has stopped spinning for once and is leaning down next to her, its head on the floor and its legs dangling over a large rock. Even when it's lying down, it's still somehow upside down. "Muay here became a hitmontop," she says as she picks at the tattered remains of the blue shirt it wears. I wonder where people buy these sorts of clothes for their pokémon – do people really build stores designed entirely for pokémon clothes? I've seen machoke on the red carpet wearing tuxedos and then there was even a hypno once that was wearing a ballroom gown which was just _weird_ because it still had all the neck fur and everything.

"Tai became a hitmonchan," Ali says, "but well… he died." She grabs a strip of ripped blue shirt between her thumb and her hand and stares at it like it's showing her a video. Her hitmontop coos and places a hand over hers. Whatever it says makes her nod slowly. "This shirt Muay wears used to belong to Tai. He won't take it off and he won't let me replace it. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain if I want to."

Everything would be silent, were it not for the crackling of our fire and Cassie's chants as it dances around it. I stare at my pokémon absently, wondering what I'd do if one of them did die. I decide quite quickly that I don't want to think about that, because it's already bad enough to think about what's happened to Craig and where he might have vanished too. I don't want to spend my time dreaming about what might happen to my pokémon too.

I look up and see that the sky is all kind of pink. Dad always used to tell me that a pink sky would mean something to sailors. I frown as I try to remember it, but nothing comes back to mind. Mostly I remember it being around the time he first taught Kiki to shoot a needle at me every time I cursed or broke curfew or snuck out of the house.

I remember it all and look at Kiki out of the corner of my eyes. It doesn't seem to move, but I get the feeling that it knows I'm watching it. I imagine that all of its needles are actually tiny eyeballs that let it watch me from any direction.

"Sorry," Jerry says. I'm drawn back to their conversation and away from thoughts of a multiple-eyed Kiki monster. "I shouldn't have –"

"It's alright," Ali says. "People die. Pokémon die. It happens. If I didn't want to tell you, I wouldn't have."

"Still," Jerry says. He looks up at her, blushes and then looks back to the floor. He picks up a blade of grass and spins it between his fingers. "Thanks," he says, so quietly that I can barely hear him. "You know, for trusting me with that."

Ali shrugs, her attention still on her hitmontop. Cap hovers behind her like a shadowy butler. It stands so properly that I can imagine it perfectly in a suit and tie rather than its fighting robes. "I wanted you to know."

Jerry looks up at her with such a shy smile that I'm tempted to burst into giggles. "I appreciate it. I… I want to know more about you. That is you know, if you want me to, but I can totally understand if you don't in which case can we pretend that I haven't ever said anything?"

I blink. I know that people say that _I_ can talk fast sometimes when I'm excited, but even I have to take a moment to try and make sense of what Jerry just said. It takes Ali a little longer, but when she does she looks up at him and smiles. "I'd like that," she says.

He pretty much leaps across the fire at her. I don't know whether to worry if he'll fall into the flames or crush my pokémon. I'm not entirely certain what one would be worse either.

"What part?" he asks.

She smirks at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

It's at that point that Cassie decides to summon a hailstorm above us.

**-O-O-O-**

Before I know it, we're already nearly at Saffron. I complain for the better part of an hour about how time is going _way_ too quickly and that Ali's going to be leaving me before I even know it. After she hugs me and tells me that I'm not going to get rid of her that easily, I still spend the next hour hugging onto her and begging her not to leave me. I even tell her that we can put Jerry in a wig and have him pretend to be her for the karate people in Saffron, but other than laughing, she doesn't seem that enthralled with the idea.

I mean, it's not like I'm not happy about getting to spend time alone with my brother. I _do_ like him – sometimes, but he doesn't ever need to know that – but he gets so _annoying_! He's like both my parents rolled into one and I shouldn't have to listen to him about brushing my teeth and not drinking fizzy drinks first thing in the morning when my parents tell me exactly the same each night when I ring them!

I try and train my pokémon a bit more in the meantime. Jerry seems to think that getting Cassie to fill his underpants with snow isn't training, but I think it's pretty amazing that it's getting to the point where Cassie doesn't even really need to be looking at him to do it! He grumbles constantly as snow leaks out the bottom of his jeans or just melts and makes it look like he's wet himself. I don't do it to Ali because she's nice and teaches me fighting stuff and has her pokémon train mine.

I wanna learn how to do flying kicks though. Ali does them against Cap all the time and they look like they even manage to sometimes hurt it! Given that Cap seems to hardly ever move unless it's fighting, I've become convinced that it's actually part stone. Ali doesn't seem to want to teach me though, because she thinks that I won't be able to do them properly and I'll end up hurting myself.

I can't really complain too much though, because then otherwise she won't teach me at all. Meanwhile she's stolen the training that Jerry and I use. She paints targets onto trees and rocks now and has her pokémon attack them in specific orders and from further and further away. I get to gloat about how much better my pokémon are than hers at it, but given that most of her pokémon seem strong enough to lift a house, I guess it isn't exactly much of a victory.

Saffron seems to get bigger and bigger each time I look up and see it in the distance. Given that it's meant to be a town full of psychics, I'm surprised that it isn't glowing purple or something. Regardless, Mandy seems to have taken to sitting on my shoulder almost constantly, whilst Kiki keeps close to my side.

Jerry also doesn't know that Kiki seems to have developed the habit of using the roots it plants to crush the _millions_ of rattata around here to death. Each time it does so, Mandy or Cassie race to grab the remains of Kiki's kill. Then it gets even stranger because Cassie and Mandy sometimes bring back dead bellsprout or oddish which Kiki then squeezes in its roots and then the corpse goes all shrivelled like all the insides have been sucked out of it! There was also the trainer that Mandy stole the pack of grass pokémon feed from, even though I already have some that I'm feeding Kiki. That was rather awkward to explain when Jerry found my pokémon happily eating it all – and of course, Cassie decided to eat the packaging rather than the actual food.

My pokémon seem to be working together, which is just plain _weird_.

**-O-O-O-**

Saffron City is where it all happened so many years ago. The rise to power for the Rockets. You'd think that a city full of psychic pokémon and people adapted to them – (yes Jerry, I've been researching it, now shut up, jerkface) – would be able to notice when loads of people move in to take over. They funded the hostile takeover of what was once Saffron's fighting gym by Sabrina and her minions. Giovanni had the means to blackmail each and every one of Kanto's gym leaders and Elites – and he did it without even blinking.

Saffron is also the hub of all business in pretty much the entire world. Every top company has a big department building there – one of the many buildings that threaten to pierce a hole in the sky. People say that sometimes certain streets will be dark, even at midday, just because of the height of the buildings. The tallest buildings are gathered in the centre of Saffron, known as The Finger. People only call that because it's easier than the real name people call it –The Middle Finger to God. Mention The Finger and everyone knows what you're talking about. Teams of psychics and fliers monitor its reaches, making sure that people who enter the buildings aren't going to jump off and leave holes in the ground, cartoon-style.

But Saffron is also full of parks, museums and almost _everything_ that people could ever want. It's got the biggest rail network that anyone's seen – to cross from the far east of Saffron to the far west, even by train will take nearly three hours. Helicopters take up what little of the skyline isn't occupied by buildings, further taking away the natural light.

A layer of smog seems to hang over Saffron. Even Fuchsia, home to Kanto's oldest clan of ninjas and the strongest poison-adapted people there are, doesn't have the oppressive cloak of smog. People stalk down Saffron's streets, always with a purpose, ignoring the cries of the homeless people that live in stinking alleyways and the starving pokémon that rummage through the bins on the street.

"This place is depressing," I say, and it's not just because it's going to take Ali away from me. The people don't seem happy. The entire place feels like all the colour in life has just vanished. All the people seem to be either trying to follow the latest fashion and thus look almost exactly the same, or they'll all in business suits and heavy coats, rushing around whilst typing away on their phones. I'm tempted to run around screaming silly things just to see if anyone will even look away from their phones, but Jerry stops me. He says it's because I'll get lost too easily in the city, but I think that if I'm running around acting like a crazy person, he should be able to find me pretty easily!

"Most of these people never became trainers," Jerry says as we walk down a busy street. There's so many people! I'm not used to all of them. It's weird, but I'm used to the empty plains and forests filled with pokémon now, not streets lined with people as far as I can see. They charge like angry rhyhorn, barely ever stopping to move out of people's way. At one point I see a man barge into another and both of them fall over. I can't stop the laugh that comes out, but no one helps them. Both the men get back to their feet, shout at each other as people walk around them, then finally call each other things that Dad would ground me until I was forty for and storm off in opposite directions.

"And they're all angry with their lives," Ali comments.

I'm glad that we decided to recall all our pokémon, because there's no way that I'd have ever been able to keep track of them here! Even if I had something like a volcarona, fluttering above everyone and sprinkling fire everywhere, I'd still somehow lose it somewhere.

"There's always someone out there with something better than them – that seems to be the way everyone in cities like this thinks," Ali says. She has to twist around people as they continue surging through us. "Did we come in the middle of lunch or something?"

Jerry shrugs. "It's about midday. At least these people don't seem that bothered by us – other towns tend to give trainers a wide berth, as if we're diseased or something."

I grin evilly. "We're diseased!" I shout at the top of my lungs. Jerry gasps and slams a hand over my mouth, but that wouldn't be enough to stop me if it seemed like people were even paying attention to us. Instead they carry on walking. I may as well have spoken in a different language, for all the good it did me.

"Come on," Ali says, laughing as she grabs my hand. "We might as well do something touristy while we're here – and before you get us kicked out."

I poke my tongue out at her, but let her drag me down the street. Even the roads are full of people, weaving in and out around the cars, as if they're unable to get run over. I see another couple of blacked out cars and wonder just who might be in them and how important they must be. A woman in a convertible honks her horn at people that don't move out of her way. They all seem to pretend that she doesn't exist, even as she begins shouting things at them in something that _might_ be a language, but sounds a lot like words my dad uses when he tries to be cool.

I see a building that somehow I _know_ Ali is dragging us towards, even before she seems to have seen it. Once she does, she squeals and sure enough, drags us in there.

It's an entire store dedicated to _eevee._

I can't look anywhere without one of the things staring at me. There's plush dolls and toys and keyrings and _costumes_, for some really weird reason. All the people in here are dressed up like the evolutions of them – a lady dressed up as a flareon comes up to us and offers us sweets shaped like eevees. A man walks around, wearing nothing but a few leaves between his legs and has his skin painted all green and a long leafy tail tied around some sort of underwear that I'm pretty sure I found in one of Mum's drawers before.

"This place rocks," Ali says, grinning like a lunatic.

"Yeah," Jerry says distractedly. He stares at some woman dressed up like a vaporeon. I don't even know how she can pretend to be one, because I'm pretty sure I've never seen a vaporeon with huge boobs.

The entire store is painted with bright colours – blue, yellow, red, purple and _everything_. There's a song playing that I can't understand, but it's all happy and bouncy and something that might be played at might school disco. It makes my teeth ache like I've ate too much sugar.

Ali finds a photobooth and kicks a couple out of the way that were too busy making smoochy faces at each other. Once they're gone, Ali pretty much throws Jerry and I into the booth and slams a few coins into the slot.

She presses the buttons on the screen almost before they even appear. "Say eevee!" she sings, throwing her arms around us both and squishing all our faces together.

What follows isn't exactly a pretty picture. Ali tries it twice more until finally we take one that we all like, then she prints them off. A strip of four photos appears underneath the screen, all of that photo. Ali tears off two and hands one to Jerry and I before pocketing the other two. I barely have time to slide mine into my own pocket before Ali _squeals_ and bounces out of the booth, dragging us both as the store music transforms into something squeaky and fast.

I find that all the people dressed up as eevee and its evolutions are now dancing, in sync. It would be totally awesome if they were something like hydregion or haxorus, but instead they're trying to be cute and cuddly which is really just kinda creepy when they're obviously fully grown people. And there's one guy in the corner dressed as an eevee and I'm pretty sure that the fur he's covered in is his own back hair.

I'm pretty sure that my nightmares are going to have zombies in eevee costumes now.

**-O-O-O-**

It's nearly night by the time that we reach the street with the fighting dojo on it. Almost as if we're psychic, all three of us start to slow down as much as possible as we walk towards it. I don't want Ali to leave. Today was proof enough that we have fun when we're all together – we went out for food and had the best burger, _ever_, went to museums and saw loads of stuff, then watched all the street performers and there was a man juggling chainsaws that were on! I so wanted him to cut off his hand or something, but he didn't and caught them all perfectly, which is pretty cool but totally not the same thing.

I touch my wallet, where I've stored the picture of Jerry, Ali and I. My phone starts to vibrate in my pocket, letting me know that it's about the time I usually call my parents. I don't want to, because that just means that it's less time I'll get to spend with Ali before she leaves and I'll never see her again.

"Well…" she says as we reach the doors of the dojo. It looks like any other gym from the outside, but I can hear what sounds like people fighting inside. It smells like sweat and those strange smelling sticks that people like to burn. A farfetch'd sits on the roof, quacking at nothing as it slaps the air with a leek.

"Don't go!" I shout, throwing myself at Ali and wrapping my arms around her. She's not allowed to leave! I don't care if Roark arranged this all and if it's what she wants to do, because it's going to be weird without her and we've been travelling together for ages and she's like the sister I've always wanted!

Ali grunts and I know she's smiling. She pulls my arms away and bends down to my height. Her eyes are wet, which makes me feel better about the tears that have managed to leak down my face. "I'm not going forever," she says. "You've got my number. You can text me every day if you want." She pulls me into a hug and rests my head on her shoulder. "You helped me find Sean that day. We've been through too much together for us not to keep in touch." She pulls away and smiles, wiping my cheeks with her thumbs. "Maybe the next time we see each other, you may have even got all the badges you need."

I manage something halfway between a sniff, a laugh and a sob. "Totally," I say, even though my heart isn't in it.

She hugs me again. "Try to keep away from dead legends, alright?" she whispers into my ear. "And keep your brother safe."

"Okay," I say.

She lets me go and hugs Jerry. She whispers something in his ear, he says something in hers. They hold each other for what seems like forever until Ali finally pulls away. She moves from him, lets go and suddenly spins back around and kisses him on the cheek.

"See you soon guys," she says, waves and then walks through the big glass doors into the dojo. I watch as she walks up to the front desk and says something to the bald little old man behind it. Even from here, I can see the way his face lights up. He gestures to one side and follows her as they walk away from the desk and into the building.

And just like that, she's gone.

Jerry puts his hand on my shoulder. "Come on Squirt," he says. "We should get to the pokémon centre." He waits a moment as I do nothing, then pulls me around and hugs me. "She'll be fine," he says. "Don't worry about her."

I hug him back, unable to tell him why I'm really upset. Watching Ali leave made me more upset than finding out Craig had vanished did. I can't help but think that I'm a horrible friend and decide that come tomorrow, even if the creepy people come after me again, I'm going to start trying to find him.


	12. The Guise of Monsters

_Dear Diary,_

_. . . _

_I am lonely._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|The Guise of Monsters|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

For the longest time in what feels like forever, I don't wake up to the sound of Ali singing in the shower. It takes me a good minute to realise that I'm not going to hear it for ages because Ali's left me. I don't want to move from bed, because realising such a thing when the sunlight's only just starting to creep through the blinds is just _depressing_.

My pillow bares the weight of my sigh. I flip around and bury my head in it, refusing to cry anymore. I'm certain if I do, then my pillow is going to be nothing but wet mush that the centre is going to try and make me pay for. I hear the sounds of the shower running, glance across my room and see that Jerry's not in his bed. I groan and pull my pillow against my head. He's in the shower and there's no Ali here to play with the taps and make the water run cold and boiling hot over him.

I miss her, but she's happy and training, I remind myself. I have to try hard not to text or call her. I explained it all to my parents and they sympathised. That was it. They didn't even give me a way to make time hurry up so that Ali can start travelling with us again! I thought parents were meant to have all the answers!

I got over Craig disappearing and having to leave my parents, I tell myself. Sure, I miss them all still, but at least it means I'll be able to get over Ali leaving too.

Besides, I'm in _Saffron!_ Even though I had to spend yesterday in the creepy-eevee store, there's still loads to do.

I manage to shove myself out of bed and make my way to the bathroom door. "Jerry!" I shout, hammering on the door as I do so. "Hurry up in there! I need to _pee_!" I don't really, but otherwise he'll be in there for like _forever_ shaving his arm hair or whatever it is that boys do that makes them spend ages in the bathroom. "And where can I find out where people have gone missing? I want to try and find Craig!"

His response is nearly silent underneath the running water. I wander back to my bed and fall down on top of it, waiting for him to finally emerge from the shower. I would let Mandy out of its poké ball, but it'd probably decide to somehow steal Jerry's towel and that is _not_ something that I want to see. Ever.

Finally he comes out of the bathroom, one fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist and the other busy trying to dry his curly hair. "Did you even hear what I said?"

"Nope," I say, smiling widely.

He sighs as he roots around in his backpack for clothes. Finally he finds a shirt, pulls it up to his face and sniffs it. "Good enough," he mutters before putting it on. "I said that investigating something like that isn't a good idea when you've seen _two_ dead legendary creatures. Ali's lucky that she's now got all the karate monks with her twenty-four-seven. Being out in the wilds makes it a lot easier for us to just disappear."

"But it's my fault he went missing!" I whine. "I've got to try and find him somehow. He'd try and find me if I'd disappeared! What if he thinks I've gone missing and he's trying to find me?"

"Or what if his house got broken into and his mother took him to live with relatives for a while?"

"But then _why_ would our parents move so suddenly?"

He shrugs. "They're paranoid. And old. I don't know – maybe Dad wanted to quit his job and that was the perfect excuse?" He sighs and drops onto his bed. "It's all too much and too weird to think about. If I let myself start thinking that they're hiding because people are chasing you, them and us because of one dead legendary pokémon, then I'm going to work myself into having a panic attack. Look Squirt . . . if I'm acting like a jerk, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to keep myself from going crazy here and phoning Mum and Dad every two minutes to make sure they're still alive. Every time I let you out of my sight, I start panicking that you've seen something else and that someone's going to try and kidnap you too."

I bounce off my bed, collapse next to him and throw my arms around his waist. "I'm not going to let anyone kidnap me. Or you." I smile as confidently as I can. "Besides, you're going to have to leave me soon. You can't keep travelling _everywhere_ with me. I've already got one badge and after the two I need from Kanto, I need to go to Johto or Hoenn. You're still collecting Kanto badges."

He ruffles my hair. "Maybe. Maybe not. You might totally wind me up sometimes and make me want to dangle you out of a window, but you're still my little sister. If I have to travel with you for another year, just to make sure you're safe, then I'll do it. Just do me a favour and don't try and look for Craig until I can help you, alright?" He hugs me back and leans his chin on my head. "Now didn't you want to pee?"

I laugh. "Nope. I just said that because otherwise you'd be in the shower all morning."

He growls and slaps me with the towel he used on his hair. "Go get ready, Squirt. We're heading to Lavender soon."

I poke my tongue at him and make my way towards the bathroom. I've barely managed to shut the door when I just about hear him say, "Holy foongus." Naturally my curiosity drives me to swing open the door and race back into the room. I find him stood in front of the window, holding open the blinds and peering outside.

My first thought is that there's been a car crash, since Saffron's pokémon centre is right on a road where cars zoom down day and night all the time! I'm not sure if there has been one, but if there has then their windows must be soundproofed enough to block even exploud!

I make for the window, but Jerry sees me and holds me back. "No way Squirt. I'm not letting you see this."

"Is there blood?" I grin. He goes to try and stop me again. I stomp on his foot and race past him as he hops away, cursing madly. The blinds are still slightly drawn from where Jerry was peeking out. I stick my head around them and see the street below _filled_ with policemen and reporters and flashing lights! There's a single car parked next to the pokémon centre that happens to be almost right underneath my window. It's another one of those ones with blacked out windows that seem to be everywhere lately. Except, all the windows on this one are smashed and there's two men in the front seats, both slumped over and their faces hidden from view.

In both of their chests are what seem to be bright purple, _glowing_ arrows. Blood's all over the street beneath the car and the police are keeping people away and it seems like they're stopping trainers from leaving the pokémon centre too.

Jerry growls and suddenly pulls me away from the window. I cry out, just because I want to know what's happening down there!

"Stay away from the window," he says. "Dad will kill me if he knows I've let you see something like that."

I cross my arms and glare at him. "Am I the only one that remembers Eterna and the _zombies eating people_? That's just two dead guys with weird glowy arrows in their chests."

Jerry crosses his own arms and not only matches my glare, but beats it thoroughly. "Go get ready," he says, pointing to the bathroom and doing a really good impression of Dad. Not that I'd ever tell him that.

"Fine," I grumble. Just to get him back, I let Mandy out. Jerry's embarrassed shrieks as I close the bathroom door tell me that Mandy's stolen his towel in record time.

**-O-O-O-**

It's nearly afternoon by the time we're allowed to leave the pokémon centre. Jerry's not happy about it, grumbling constantly as we walk down the road, mentioning about how we've lost daylight hours. I don't really mind it too much, if I'm honest. I got to train my pokémon some more in the centre whilst all the police kept us in there and beat most of the trainers that wanted to battle me! All the police that tried talking to us were all nice, despite Jerry being grumpy about them almost constantly.

"We're going to be lucky if we manage to get onto Route 8 by nightfall now," Jerry groans.

I shrug. "It can't be that bad, can it?"

He gives me a really flat look. "Surely you've learnt by now that Routes aren't just one straight road? They're the names for loads of different roads that connect one town to another. There's about sixteen different roads and nearly thirty paths that Route 8 has. That's not counting the roads only for cars. Shall I show you on your pokédex just how many different roads there are?"

"I'm fine," I grunt. I really don't care too much about all the different roads, because it's not like I've never needed to worry about anything like that before. All I usually tend to do is follow the signs. Or the GPS on my pokédex. I mean sure, I might get lost once or twice or panic that I'm lost, but it beats having to memorise maps like my old geography teacher at school! He was weird. He had wrinkles on his face that reminded me of all the rivers we were meant to memorise.

I nod along as Jerry says something else about the roads. I don't really pay any attention – so long as I know what sort of place I'm walking into, I'll be fine.

"We need hiking stuff," I say randomly, cutting Jerry off mid-sentence.

"… Why, exactly?"

"Because we have to go through Rock Tunnel, _duh_. Or at least Mount Moon. Because after I beat the gym leader in Lavender, I have to go find Blaine and he's meant to be somewhere near Cinnabar, even though that volcano erupted and poured lava over _everyone!_" I spin around and grab his coat. "Can we go to a museum there? Can we? Because if lava went everywhere, that means people would have got frozen in time like all those people from that _really_ old volcano eruption that happened ages ago!"

He sighs. "That's not the actual people you're seeing." At least he knows what I'm talking about. Maybe he's not completely hopeless with history after all. Though, given that I'm always mentioning it to him, he obviously has to have learnt something, simply because I'm awesome like that.

"When they found them, all that remained of them were voids in the rock," he says. "So they filled the voids with plaster and came away with perfect images of the people that were killed."

I'm so not going to admit that I didn't already know that. "But _still_!" I whine. "We have to go there! And then after that, we need to get another ship or something. If we go to Hoenn at least. But we can go straight to Johto, but we have to go through waterfalls there to end up in New Bark."

"So what does that have to do with Mount Moon or Rock Tunnel?"

I shrug. "I want an onix," I say, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"They evolve into steelix."

I shudder at the memory of the way Nathan's bones went _crunch_,_ crunch_ in the steelix's mouth.

"I know," I say, even as I try desperately not to think about that day, "and that's why I want one. It'd be totally awesome for me to ride a steelix into towns and terrify people into doing what I want!" I laugh an evil laugh. Jerry doesn't seem too impressed with it.

We turn onto a shopping street that's filled with people running around like their butts are on fire. There's _loads_ of shops with more shops built on top of them and an entire building that goes up far higher than I can see, filled with more shops! I smell all the smells of fast food and my stomach begins to grumble. Further down the road there's a group of people with cameras following some lady with a persian coat and _huge_ sunglasses. I don't know who she is, but people stop and stare at her as we carry on walking. I see that she has _three_ people with her; all in suits and that are as big as one of Ali's fighters. They're all carrying bags upon bags of her shopping, which is pretty awesome. I wanna be rich enough so that I can have people carry all the stuff I buy!

Jerry doesn't recognise her, so I don't feel stupid for not doing so either. "You do realise the restrictions on owning a steelix?" He just _has_ to bring up the rules, doesn't he?

"I know," I sigh in the exact same tone as when I'm bored with my parents lecturing me. "Level threes require at least four gym badges to show you're strong enough to handle them. Level fours require eight gym badges and an official permit from the city's police force of mayor saying that you're allowed to let it out inside the city. Level fives mean that you have to have either twenty badges or have won a country's League tournament and then permission from the League themselves that says you're allowed to own it."

Jeez, it's like I'm studying for my tests all over again! I _know_ that an onix is a level five risk, but if I capture one and no one ever happens to find out, where's the problem?

"Or you could have been training them for a number of years without gaining badges," Jerry reminds me. "Or have a number of coordinator ribbons or pokéathlon trophies. Breeders can train them too, but they have to pay loads for the licences to do so and need badges on top of that as proof. Then there's pokémon hunters, who are only _really_ allowed to capture and transport them, rather than training them."

"Fine," I mutter mutinously. I grumble as I follow him into a pokémon store filled with general stuff like food, collars – translation and normal – then toys and litter trays and all other sorts of weird things. I see a shock collar and laugh at the thought of putting it on Kiki and shocking it every time it stabs me for swearing. I quickly realise though, with Mandy around the collar would somehow end up on me and never be able to be removed.

Jerry gets distracted by the meowth kittens almost immediately. I can understand why, since they're cute and all, but seriously, I don't see why he'd go and play with them when the little pen opposite has _houndour _puppies! There's only three of them and their fur is all glossy and black, but only one of them has white markings coming through just yet. They whine and play with each other, coughing out little breaths of hot air over each other.

I decide then and there that I want one. The price however, seems a _little_ out of my range. Then Jerry reminds me that these are pet pokémon, so they're bred to not be as vicious or be able to breathe fire as often.

But they're so _cute!_

I decide that I'm going to steal one when the shop shuts. Jerry seems to know instantly what I'm thinking and tells me in no uncertain terms that I'm not allowed to, because I can't raise a puppy in the wilds when they're full of dangerous pokémon. I just tell him that instead I'll go out and capture a wild one and train it to be totally awesome. After that he decides to rattle on about the different sort of shots I'd need to get if one of them bit me, in addition to all the ones I'd have to get for it. Not like I don't know that already – why else do we have to tell all the nurses in pokémon centres when we've just captured something?

"We've still got to go to Mount Moon or Rock Tunnel," I tell him. "I'll capture _all_ the zubat in all of them, so that when trainers travel through, they'll all be happy that there's no zubat to stalk them endlessly. Then I'll have all the zubat waiting outside, ready to attack people and stalk them _everywhere!_" I laugh evilly again. Jerry is unimpressed once more. "Or I'll catch a geodude and teach it to cause earthquakes."

He sighs and takes the pokémon food I've chosen off me. As he goes to buy everything, I make my way back to the houndour puppies and start playing with them again. If no one's looking, I can just put one inside my coat and sneak out!

… except my inside pockets are too small.

I sigh and just throw them little bits of meat chunks the store has set aside for people to feed them with. They whine and growl at each other as they attack the food. As Jerry comes back and finds me playing with them again, I start to try and convince him to let me capture one. I mean, I'll have something that can start fires, it'll be awake constantly at night and able to look out for me, it's _awesome, _it can track people . . . and Jerry completely shuts me down by telling me that I need to carry on training my current pokémon before getting a new one.

Whatever. Jerk. He's just jealous because even Cassie's already better at the target training than some of his pokémon.

The next shop we go into is a clothes shop for trainers. They have pretty cool designs for most things, but almost all the girl's stuff in my size is _pink_. I mean, I don't exactly _hate_ the colour pink, but I don't want to walk around looking as if I've been thrown into a bubblegum factory.

Jerry leaves me as I decide I need new underwear. It was so much more fun when Ali was with us, because then we'd go and laugh at all the silly designs they have and all the bras that are bigger than my head. I think we're still banned from one shop in Sinnoh because we were walking around with a bra on our heads, one of us in each cup as we pretended to be conjoint twins.

It's when I'm halfway through choosing some new stuff when I see someone start looking next to me. I don't pay them any attention, at least not until they turn around and say, "Hi."

I glance up and see that it's a boy, older than Jerry and just _weird_ looking. Like he tries too hard to look like all those men in the magazines that always have their shirts off and hairstyles like girls.

"Uh… hi?" I say. "Why are you in the girls' stuff?"

He smiles a little. "Oh, I was wondering why everything here didn't look like my size."

"Okay," I say and decide to leave the creepy boy. Except, he starts to follow me. I know he's following me, even as slowly as he moves. I can feel a poké ball in the palm of each of my hands, hidden in my gloves. Sure it makes shopping a little harder, but it's considerably easier to get them that way.

Still, with Mr. Creepy following me, I smack a glove against my hip and activate the ball inside. Kiki emerges, looking considerably confused to be in a clothes store.

"I need to choose something," I tell it loudly. "And that creepy boy there is following me."

Kiki glances over at him and gives him a glare that could melt walls. I see it about to attack and quickly press my hands against Kiki's shoulders. "Don't attack him!" I hiss. "You'll get us thrown out of the store! Just . . . scare him, or something."

But it doesn't seem to deter him. "Nice pokémon," he says. "Never seen something like that before. What is it?" He looks across a rail at me. I try my best not to run screaming in the other direction. "I'm Noah, by the way."

I look up at him. "I don't care."

His smile falters for a moment, but it's back on his face nearly a second later. "Don't talk to strangers, right? Can't blame you there. But we're in a busy shop, aren't we? You're obviously a trainer. You here on your own?"

I shudder. I don't know why exactly, but I do. I glare up at him and consider just shoving him into the display of pencils behind him. If anything they might stab him and stop him from being so creepy. I make my way towards the middle of the shop, where at least there's more people. He's still following me. I feel my heart start to race a little. I could run, try and find Jerry. Except, I don't know where he is and it could take ages to find him, by which time Mr Creepy could have taken me and put me in the back of his windowless van and then I'd be one of those girls in the news that they only find like twenty years later with a _billion_ inbred babies.

I force myself to calm down. A woman looks over at me, smiles a little. I mouth _'creepy guy' _to her. She nods and starts following me too, watching my stalker.

I glare at him as Kiki hisses something I'd be needled for. He smiles at me. I've had enough and decide to act exactly like Ali would in this situation.

"My brother's in here," I say quickly. "And if he finds you being creepy, he's going to hurt you. And if you don't stop following me, my pokémon is going to cut off your balls."

He just carries on smiling. "Come on. I doubt you'd do that."

I don't even need to say anything. I just _look_ at Kiki and it understands. One moment it's stood between me and the weirdo and the next it slaps him with enough force to send him flying through one of the displays! There's a shriek of metal and two entire rails of clothes fall down with him and suddenly everything goes quiet in the store and people are all looking at us.

The woman I saw before rushes to my side. "Are you alright?" she asks me. I nod and say nothing. She smiles. "I've called the police already, don't you worry about him or anything."

"I'm fine," I manage to say. "Is he dead? I think my pokémon killed him." I don't sound half as bothered by the idea as I know I should be.

It turns out that he is alive, as he groans and tries to get back to his feet. Out of nowhere one of the store security guards comes along, grabs him and hauls him off somewhere. Only after everything's happened does Jerry manage to find me figure out what's been happening.

"Stay here," he says, totally serious. I wonder just what must be so important that he has to leave me in the company of only Kiki. Any other time and he'd tell me he'll never leave my side again to make sure nothing like that happens.

So naturally, I follow him.

Annie is out, floating around him and making creepy banette noises. They move through the store, past all the boy's clothes and towards an empty hallway that's covered in nothing but white. There's a sign that points out the toilets are nearby, but Jerry and Annie don't seem to notice them. In fact, they go straight past the toilets and towards a door marked as _staff only._

I don't even stop to consider the fact that I might get in trouble if someone finds me back there, because surely Jerry will too!

I notice quickly that whilst everything in the main store is all pretty and filled with posters and displays, the staff only bits are dull and boring. There's big posters telling people how much they need to sell and other things about how to best find customers or something boring like that. I see an advertisement for someone's birthday party as I continue to follow Jerry.

I look through a set of windows and see the security guard and the guy they took away. The guard is all red in the face and looks totally cross, whilst creepy guy is just sat there staring at the floor.

I think that nothing's happening in there, right up until the moment Annie floats through the doors and puts the security guard to sleep. I ran towards the doors, my heart pounding. Why would Annie be putting a security guard to sleep? What's going on in there?

I slide around to the door and I'm just about to storm in when I catch sight of what's happening in there and I stop instantly.

Because Jerry's gotten a knife from _somewhere_ and he's holding it up to the guy's throat!

". . . If I _ever_ see you or even hear of you sniffing around near my sister again, I'm going to cut off your balls and feed them to you," Jerry growls. Neither of them notices me. Jerry's too busy holding a knife to the man's neck and the man is too busy staring at the knife with really wide eyes. Sweat is leaking from his temples and Annie is floating around him, cackling darkly.

The man nods quickly. Jerry presses the knife a little deeper. I see blood start to come out. "Go near anyone that's my sister's age and my banette will find you," he says. "And she'll make sure that you spend the rest of your life trapped in an eternal nightmare."

The man grunts in pain suddenly. I poke my head a little further through the doorframe and hear a wet _squelch_ sound as Jerry pulls his knife out of the guy's shoulder and I try not to gasp because _holy crap my brother has just stabbed someone!_ He's going to go to jail and spend the rest of his life in there and I'm going to have to bake him a cake with a chisel hidden inside and I don't know _how_ to bake cakes and _there's so much blood!_

"I was never here," Jerry says. Annie floats down in front of the man's face and opens its mouth really, _really_ wide and the man screams like he's seen something from the scariest horror show ever.

And then Jerry turns around, still wiping the blood off his knife and sees me watching him.

I freeze, because he's my brother and I know he'd never hurt me but I've just seen him _stab_ someone and he looked so angry before and I really hope that he never gets that angry with me because I don't want to have to look into a banette's open mouth and have my soul sucked out or something!

Jerry slides the knife into a slot on his backpack. He looks like he doesn't know what to say. Finally he walks up to me, goes to touch me and stops, sees his hand covered in blood.

"We're leaving," he says, nudging me with his elbow.

I nod, unable to say anything or even _think_ of anything to do, because what do I say when I've just seen my brother stab someone?

**-O-O-O-**

It's night time before either of us says anything to each other. Since we were done with all of our shopping, we headed straight towards Route 8 and started making our way through there. I'd keep catching Jerry looking at me, as if he wanted to say something but didn't know what to say. I think he's upset that I kept Mandy out and nearby. Even now, when we're sitting by the fire, I've still got it sat on my shoulder, cawing softly and nudging my cheek with its beak, trying to get some form of food off me.

Mandy suddenly squawks and leaps down to the floor. I look up from the fire and see that Jerry's offering me a cake – not just a piece but an entire family sized chocolate fudge cake – and doesn't seem to be wanting to move until I take it.

"Look," he says and then he says my name; my _actual_ name without nicknames or anything else, which makes me really worried because he _never_ calls me that. "I'm sorry. I . . . foongus. I don't know what to say. I mean, that guy! Arceus only knows what he could have done to you and I wasn't around just because I didn't want to feel awkward whilst you were buying underwear."

I scoot over a little on my log. He's even set up his tent on the other side of the fire to me, which is new, because usually his tent is always next to mine, shielding me from the road or the forest or wherever he thinks people are going to come from. Smoke drifts lazily from our fire. I see trees in the distance, complete with another fire somewhere further away. We're far enough from Saffron that the city lights aren't even enough to find the trail by anymore.

Jerry sits down next to me on the log, offers me the cake. I'm surprised to find that it's actually warm; with all the fudge turning into melty goo that makes it all the tastier. I have no idea when he managed to do it, but I think it must have been about when he wandered off to find water or something.

He sighs as I cave in and take the cake. It smells so nice! Mandy squawks, leaps back up to my shoulder and peers at the cake. Eventually it decides that it's not mouldy enough or something, because it hops back down, acting all offended for whatever reason.

"None of that should have happened," Jerry says, finally. "I should have been with you so that that guy didn't follow you. But I wasn't, so he did. And . . . it just annoyed me. I saw red, because all I could think about was what could have happened if you hadn't had Kiki attack him, or if he hadn't bothered talking to you and just _took_ you instead."

"Jerry," I say, perhaps more forcefully than I intend to. "It's not like Mum and Dad didn't warn me about people like him. Why else do you think I keep my poké balls in my gloves? I mean, sure it was scary because what sort of weird guy hangs around in the girls' part of a clothes store? I've had to deal with zombies and steelix and stuff like that already Jerry. I know you worry about me, but I can deal with strangers after everything else I've beaten already.

"It wasn't your fault," I reassure him. He manages a little smile. I grin at him before I cut a piece of cake off, put it on the floor and let out Cassie. It sniffs the cake slice, chortles a little and then _freezes_ it before it starts eating it. "My pokémon are weird," I observe.

"I blame their trainer," Jerry says.

"Jerk." I grin at him and just like that, everything seems to be back to normal again. Jerry grabs my spoon from me and helps himself to a large piece of my cake as I scream and try to snatch it back off him. I tell him that he can keep that spoon now, since it's covered in his germs and snatch one from my bag before beginning to devour the rest of the cake.

"By the way," Jerry says once we've finished it. "Don't tell Dad about that. You'd give him a heart attack or something."

I nod, because if my brother's willing to _stab _someone to try and keep me safe, I can lie to my parents to make sure he doesn't get in trouble.

**-O-O-O-**

Every country has its places that are supposed to be haunted. Usually they're remote locations, houses that are meant to have been abandoned; places where loads of people have died and their spirits have remained. Wherever it is and no matter what country it happens to be in, it's always a specific place that's haunted; only that house will have ghosts whilst the one next door will be perfectly normal.

Lavender Town is the complete opposite. The whole town is supposed to be haunted; people say that you can't cross the street without seeing spectral shapes walking towards you across the roads. People aren't allowed to drive in Lavender anymore, just because of the amount of times people have crashed because they saw something that they thought was a ghost. Lights switch on and off randomly - even those in the middle of the streets – pokémon will refuse to leave their poké balls or even turn around and flee in the other direction, doors open and shut of their own accord and people will talk to you, but when you turn round, you'll find that nobody's there.

Things got worse when they moved the old pokémon graveyard and replaced it with a radio tower. People would tune into the shows and swear that they could hear voices in the background that weren't part of the recording. Sometimes it would be a woman crying. Sometimes it was someone shouting. Other times it might have even been a child's laughter. Agatha, one of Kanto's Elites herself investigated. She shut down the radio tower the same day and even now it stands abandoned, with lights that apparently come on during the night, sounds of people singing, crying and laughing filling the air and apparently even with people standing in the windows, watching people from eyes that cry black blood tears.

Jerry shudders. "Okay, _that_ is creepy," he says. We walk down a street in Lavender and find that no matter where we look, there's a thin fog that hangs over everything. It seems to move with a life of its own, becoming thicker randomly until you can't even see your nose, then dispersing enough so that it only hangs on the horizon, watching and waiting.

A lamppost above us stutters, the light flicking on and off randomly before finally settling on staying lit. I didn't quite understand why Jerry wanted to camp out another night before we came into Lavender, but I can completely understand now that we're walking through the streets.

"This place doesn't even do Halloween parties," I say, trying to pretend that the way everything is like something out of a horror film doesn't freak me out at all. "Apparently it's meant to get worse on Halloween. People just shut their doors and don't come out – even the pokémon centre has a curfew and they all board up their windows and everything."

Jerry walks a little closer to me, Annie laughing maniacally above us. Mandy squawks something and flies after the ghost. The fog becomes thick once more and we're left only able to hear them circling above us, like they're waiting for us to die before they feast on our bones.

"If I lived here, I'd do that _all_ the time," Jerry mutters. "Let's just get to the pokémon centre and be done with it."

Almost everyone in the pokémon centre seems as creeped out as we feel. The nurses and doctors that run around seem used to the ways lights or lamps might flicker, or even the way winds will come out of nowhere in an airtight, closed room. All the other trainers are looking around nervously; the ones on their own jump at every little thing whilst the ones travelling in groups huddle together like it will protect them from whatever's happening. The older trainers are the worst ones; shrieking each time the television flares and makes horrible noises that send shivers down my spine.

Even the trainers who have been here longer seem affected by it still. It's not surprising, given that it feels like the walls, the ceiling and even the _air_ are hiding eyes that are watching us constantly.

I talk to a few trainers whilst Jerry books our rooms; they tell me where to avoid, what to look out for and to make sure that anything sharp is hidden away. All the sofas are bolted to the floor; they tell me it's because otherwise they tend to fly across the room.

I don't believe it, at least until a gust of wind _blasts_ through the reception room and a painting flies from one wall to the complete opposite one! Mandy is going crazy by my side, chirping low, constant noises almost like growls. It stares at parts of the room for ages before looking away and focusing somewhere else. I can't even get its attention whilst it just _stares_ as if something's moving and about to attack people.

The trainers tell me that the city is full of ghost pokémon. I can believe it. Some are here to train some of their pokémon; most of them with ghosts of their own. A few are here with psychics, mentioning that the amount of ghosts here interferes with a psychic's mental abilities, or something. Apparently it's the same thing as the weird noises people used to hear on the radio; the ghosts emit sounds that alter wavelengths, which screws up psychic waves or something. I just blink and nod like I understand what's happening.

I tell a couple of stories about Lavender's history and in return, a few other trainers share things that they know. They tell me about the different ways to train ghost pokémon; to look out for them if they're wild and stuff like that. I share what I know without even feeling stupid about not knowing as much as them. I glance back at one point and find that Jerry's sat nearby, just listening to the stories. He looks at me as if he's surprised that I'm making friends so easily and being able to collect information. He finally shows them Annie and starts to correct a few people on the best ways to raise ghosts, whilst talking to a few others and obviously learning a few new things himself.

We finally all start to move away to our rooms when the television – hidden behind a glass box, which I thought initially was to stop people stealing it – _groans_ like someone's hidden inside it and then _explodes!_ Smoke fills the little glass box for a moment before it's all sucked out slowly, by which point most of the trainers my age decide they've had enough and that they're going to hide under their covers in bed.

I leave when Jerry does, with a few of the trainers taking my number. I know already that they're going to be like the friends I had in school, where they have my number but only really talk to me once every few months now. Even still, I tell them I'll keep in touch because they know stuff that I need to learn about raising and training pokémon. A few more mention that they'll be battling the gym leader soon and mention how they'll send information about that, but no one else needs to battle the gym leader in the same way I do, so I'm not totally sure it'll help me.

Even though the room looks the exact same as every other pokémon centre room, this one still feels different. I can't help feeling like I'm being watched, even though it doesn't look like there's any way someone _could_. Even still, I shower in my swimming costume and keep Mandy nearby constantly.

I give up with the shower when the water turns freezing cold and then boiling hot for the third time. I know it's not Mandy because after the first time, I made sure I was watching it, because it's done exactly that before. I wrap a towel around my shoulders before I come out of the shower, because the moment I do Mandy perches itself on them. Even with the towel as a shield, I still feel its claws dig in enough to make me wince.

When I leave the bathroom I find that Jerry's lying down in bed, scribbling notes away into one of his journals. It's obviously not something private, because for once he doesn't hide it away the moment he sees me.

"You're such a geek," I say when I realise that he's writing down everything all the trainers said about raising ghosts.

"Call it what you like," Jerry says, "but it makes sense to learn from trainers that have raised different pokémon themselves. You could have asked Candice what the best way is to raise ice types when we were in Snowpoint – she could have helped you with your snorunt."

I get the mental image of having to be alone in a room with that woman and her flappy, creepy cloak and shudder. "No thanks," I say. I grab my pyjamas, get changed in the bathroom and come back out again to find that Jerry's still writing, with Annie hovering around him, hissing at the lamps.

"You can have a look at this sometime," he says as I climb into bed and hide underneath the covers. "It could help you if your snorunt ever becomes a frosslass."

I poke my head back out of the covers and find Mandy watching me from atop the headboard. I ignore it in favour of looking over to Jerry. "But that'll take _ages_," I moan. "I'm going to have gotten my badges before then."

"And what? You're still going to have all these pokémon, even when you're at the school you want to go to."

I hadn't thought of that. I get the mental image of me trying to decipher ancient texts, only for Mandy to flap in and tear all the ancient parchments to pieces. I glare at it, simply because I know it would, if it had the chance. Meanwhile the vullaby maintains an air of innocence, having the cheek to look at me as if it doesn't know that I know it plans on ruining things.

"But Cassie might become a glalie," I point out. "I've never heard of a snorunt evolving into a frosslass naturally anyway."

"They don't," Jerry says. "They only become frosslass if they're female and they're around a dawn stone."

"Then Cassie's not becoming one, ever!" I declare, because they taught us all about the radiation stones in school and the way they screw up pokémon and give them like five faces and twenty toes on each foot. I don't want Cassie to bubble up and explode out of its skin or anything like that, so it's going to evolve slowly and naturally into a floating demon ice face!

"Alright," Jerry says. "But that's there if you ever need it. I've got notes about raising other pokémon too, if you ever want to look at them." He reaches over to switch off the lamp, but it randomly bursts without him ever touching it. I shriek and hide underneath my duvet. Mandy caws and leaps down next to me, nudging my head through the pillow.

"You're getting that badge as soon as you can," Jerry says.

I don't argue, because I don't really want to be in Lavender any longer than is necessary either.

**-O-O-O-**

It's difficult to tell when morning arrives in Lavender, because the fog is still there, looming over everything and shielding the sun.

Mandy sticks by my side constantly. I haven't trained Cassie enough to trust it completely, whilst even though I know Kiki would be perfect for this, it doesn't exactly cope with having to walk over long distances terribly well.

I look out of the window and see the fog blanketing everything. I feel like I'm in a horror film, what with all the creepiness going on. I see a flash of blue in the distance and wonder why any trainer would want to teleport their way into _this_ town. If they're lucky the ghosts won't all notice the psychic pokémon and chase after them for food.

"I wanna go to Rock Tunnel first," I tell Jerry as we leave the pokémon centre. "I might be able to catch an aron in there. Or a floating electric eel!"

"Alright," Jerry says. "I was going to head to the gym anyway today; see if I'll be able to get myself a gym battle and train Annie there. Probably all my other pokémon too; Mitchel's the only one that does any good against ghosts. Do you want me to book your battle while I'm there?"

I think about it and decide that if anything, Jerry will probably give me the worst possible gym battle time ever. I mean, I want to leave Lavender as soon as possible, but I don't want to be battling in the morning whilst it's still dark or so soon that I don't have any chance of passing and then having to not only resit whatever test I've got to do, but having to stay in Lavender even longer!

"No thanks," I say. I start packing my bag, throwing everything back in there, just in case the ghosts in the pokémon centre run off with all my stuff and glance at Jerry. "Am I allowed to go to Rock Tunnel?" He hasn't even offered to walk me there or even lectured me about everything!

"Nah, it's alright," he says. I blink. It's so totally unlike Jerry that I know I should be worried. Instead I take it as the only chance I'm going to get, shrug and throw my bag over my shoulders. "Okay then! See you later!"

He waves without looking back at me. "See ya."

I watch him as I approach the door and shut it. He doesn't look back. Not even once. His phone is on his bed, so he's not even staring at that with a goofy face. I decide that whatever's distracting him is like my new best friend.

I rush out of the pokémon centre before he can change his mind. I recall Mandy for a little while, simply because my shoulder is starting to hurt and I don't want to make it tired before I wander up to Rock Tunnel and try and train a little there. Almost instantly the fog seems to close in a little around me and I'm reminded of Eterna and the clouds of gastly that erupted out of people.

I only realise my eyes are shut when I stub my toe against a lamppost. The pain brings tears to my eyes and I curse as loudly as I can, just because there's no one around this once to tell me off. I have to try not to think about the fog as nothing but a cloud of gastly as I make my way through Lavender, following the signs as best I can, hoping that the fog doesn't obscure them from my vision too.

It takes nearly an hour for me to find my way out of Lavender. Almost instantly the fog is gone. I look back and see it hanging over the city like it's boxed in by invisible walls. I have to look away when it starts to make a horrible, icky feeling crawl down my spine.

I realise a moment too late just what that horrible feeling is. Someone's hand slaps over my mouth as I'm certain I'm being followed and before I can even blink everything goes blue and bright and I'm completely blind and I don't know where the hell I am anymore!

I scream and bite down on the hand that's pressing against my mouth. I hear someone curse and fall against the cold, hard ground beneath me. My eyes take a moment to clear, even as I crawl away from the person on my hands and knees because I don't want to be captured by another gengar, because it has to be one with all the ghosts nearby and Jerry doesn't even know where I am and they're not going to find me until I'm all dead and gross and –

"_Darling, could you please _shut up_?"_

I stop breathing and moving almost instantly. The voice sounded like it came from _inside_ my head, just like Cynthia and her lucario! I have to blink bright spots out of my eyes and find that I'm looking at nothing but a dirt wall which means that I'm underground and I'm going to have to crawl all the way back up to the surface and who knows how long that's going to take?

"_I'm serious. You're giving me a headache."_

The voice sounds closer, even though it's in my head. I spin around on the floor and find myself staring up at something with yellow skin and a long nose like a donphan, except it's only about as long as my foot. There's a necklace in its hand and it has bright blue eyes and a _weird_ smile.

And it's wearing a leather jacket with a fur collar.

"_Hello, Darling,"_ it says as it approaches. It's wearing a jacket, but that's it. Everything below is completely uncovered and I can see its willy and the way it wobbles with every step it takes. _"My name is Diz. Welcome, to the hypno-kingdom."_

I stare up at it, new horror dawning on me. It's a hypno. Hypno steal children and lure them away and do things to them whilst they feed on their dreams! And I've been taken by one, which means that it's going to suck on my dreams and try and do things to me and I can't escape because I'm underground and no one knows where I am and –

"_Darling, please,"_ the hypno says, holding one hand up and the other to its head. _"Your thoughts make my head hurt. Stop. Yes, I'm a hypno. No, we don't kidnap children to violate them or whatever other dreadful stories you silly humans are so fond of telling."_

I shuffle back a bit. Mandy's poké ball is hidden in my glove. I try my best not to think about that as I put as much distance between me and the hypno, knowing it can read my mind if it wants to. "Then why did you take me?"

It smiles at me. It's a smile that I only ever tend to see on crazy people on the tv, right before they roll around naked in the mud or kill someone.

"_Why, Darling, think about it. A kingdom doesn't build itself! We take the children from the surface that no one notices and make them build our kingdom!" _It laughs. The sound wants makes me want to run so much more than the steelix or the gengar or _anything_ has ever made me want to.

"_Don't worry though, we'll let you go eventually. We'll have no use for you once you're dead, after all."_


	13. A Kingdom Beneath the World

_Dear Diary,_

_Humans are not the only ones that wage wars. From what I have heard, there are colonies of pokémon with blood feuds that tie back centuries. Tracing them, there seems to be a pattern._

_The pattern shows that we are reaching the end of peace._

…

_This is too much of a coincidence. Something is controlling events. I need to discover what._

_Hopefully these distractions shall only aide my original goal. The histories say that the butcher becomes the leader, after all._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|A Kingdom Beneath the World|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

It takes the longest moment for what the hypno – the thing that calls itself Diz – to set in. When it does, my reaction is pretty much instantaneous.

I smack my hands on the ground beneath me and release both pokémon inside. Diz makes a sound like the child of a scream and a squeal as I take the blinding flash as a chance to put distance between myself and it.

There's more screaming, most of it in pain as I try to find something that looks like an escape in this tiny, dank little room. Dirt falls down on me from the ceiling of brown. I see roots in there. Nothing that can help me escape. Diz is still screaming and I'm certain I can hear voices.

It takes me a while to realise the noises are coming from around Diz.

I spin around, afraid there's more hypno come to take me away to build their stupid kingdom, but it's just Kiki and Mandy there, trying to attack the damn hypno but finding nothing but barriers constantly appearing in their way, even if they do sometimes get through and manage to hit it.

"_My jacket!"_ It has to be Diz's voice that shrieks that, because I feel it in my head and I can see that the leather is all hanging by strips and there's a piece of it in Mandy's beak, which I know that any other time it would delight in eating.

"_Taste my wrath, demon! I will break your bones and feast on the delicious, sweet marrow inside!"_

I hear the words inside my head, just like they're being spoken by Diz or Cynthia's psychic, but at the same time my ears pick up the caws that Mandy's making. My brain tells me that what's just hasn't isn't possible. It _can't _be possible, because there's no way that my pokémon has learnt to speak or that I've suddenly become able to speak pokémon.

But then Kiki grunts and I hear in my head, _"Move out the way, bothersome bird, lest I shoot you full of holes!"_

I mean, I _can't_ be suddenly understanding it, because there's no way in any universe that this should be happening, but it is and that has to mean I've turned part pokémon or something, but there's no horns on my head and I don't have a tail and it's all just totally confusing and –

Everything goes quiet around me. I look up just as there's a flash of blue like the sky's suddenly appeared in the cavern and stood behind Diz is a much taller, older, more wrinkly hypno that isn't wearing a leather jacket and instead seems to be nothing but wrinkles and has all the white fur spouting from its neck and half way down its back.

Even the voices of my pokémon seem to stop. Diz is on the floor, Mandy perched curiously over its head and Kiki with its arm raised, about to strike. They all look over at the older hypno and seem to stare at it with something like awe.

Everything is quiet – deathly so. I want to ask just what the hell is going on, but I can't find the will to speak, because looking at the ancient hypno makes me think that I'm unworthy of speaking, even though I know that's completely stupid an makes no sense.

Finally the ancient pokémon coughs and it's like something in the air has been broken. The tension slowly draws away as it turns its bright emerald eyes on all of us. They settle on me and I can feel everything about me being read by the hypno – even though I know it shouldn't be able to read all of my thoughts and memories in one moment, but I _know_ somehow that it does.

It sighs and somehow the sound carries to my ears perfectly. _"Now do you see Diz; the reactions you cause when you are not serious in your tasks?"_

Its voice sounds almost exactly like Grandpa's. It's old and I'm instantly aware that this pokémon is like a fountain of knowledge. I could ask it anything and just like Grandpa, it would have an answer for me almost instantly.

Diz shuffles backwards, away from my pokémon and bows its head to the ancient hypno. _"I did not think they would have this reaction, my lord. I simply wished to have a little fun, that was all."_

The old hypno says nothing. Distantly I can remember Dad telling me about how only strong psychics are able to speak into more than one mind at a time, or broadcast their thoughts and speech so that everyone can hear them. Usually they start off speaking into one mind at a time, directly, which is why his kadabra is always eerily silent whenever its eyes are glowing and talking into Dad's brain. Otherwise they can't control it and end up causing problems in people's brains or something.

Somehow it's _that_ expression of their power that terrifies me the most.

The ancient hypno turns its gaze on me. _"This is the one, is it not?"_

"I'm not an _it_!" I say before I can stop myself. As soon as the words have left my mouth, I feel a heavy silence descend upon the air and begin to think that maybe that wasn't such a good idea, considering that I'm in the hypno kingdom or whatever that is and they're going to keep me here until I die and –

"_Please child,_" the old hypno says, lifting up a hand. _"Your thoughts are much too fast and constant. Calm your emotions. You are not in danger here. I regret that sending Diz to bring you here was not the wisest course of action I could have taken."_

I glare at the Diz-hyno as if I can make it burst into fire. My pokémon retreat back to me; Mandy flapping onto my shoulders and circling my head with its wings, Kiki remaining between us like a shield.

Diz looks like it has to be saying something, because its eyes are shining a sort of blue that I would think was pretty in any other circumstance. All I can hear is something like static on a bad radio, at least until the older hypno grunts something, after which Mandy squawks and lowers its wings from around my head just a fraction.

"_Better."_ I recognise instantly that it's Diz's voice, though I'm already worried about how I've managed to be able to differentiate voices that happen in my head. _"Darling, perhaps I was a little hasty in my greetings to you. In retrospect, it would appear that humans do not appear to take well to kidnapping and threats of death."_

I stare at it like its suddenly grown two heads, though I'm saved from saying anything when Kiki grunts beside me and again I hear the words perfectly in my head, _"No species does, ignorant psychic!"_

"_Now, now_," the ancient hypno says, waving its hands in a way that reminds me of my teachers in school. It looks at me, cocks its head and nods to itself. _"You are she." _Its eyes shine bright green as it speaks. _"You have seen the Fall of Legends, have you not?"_

I blink, not entirely sure of what I'm meant to say. "Yes?" I guess. "I saw the dead keldeo and the phione too, which is why I'm having to run from all these government people that are trying to keep everything about that quiet."

"_Ah yes, those people,"_ Diz says quickly. It pulls a thread from its jacket and stares at it for a moment. _"They were getting in the way. Couldn't have them reaching you before we did, Darling."_

"Stop calling me that."

"_But Darling! You're so tiny and cute! I think you'd be a rather fabulous accessory to keep around."_

"_Enough Diz,"_ the old hypno says. It looks at me and extends an old, wrinkly hand. I'm surprised it isn't leaning on a walking stick. _"Greetings child. My name is Mal Zin."_

I stare at its hand like its crawling with worms. Kiki hisses something that my brain doesn't translate and slaps the hand away. If the hypno or Mal Zin or whatever it wants to call itself is offended, it doesn't seem to say anything. It just nods and chuckles a little.

"_We brought you here because you have seen the Fall of Legends. We feel, perhaps, that you are the one our ancestors promised would come."_

"O-kay," I say slowly. "And why I am seeing all these dead legends then? I mean, it's not just me seeing them, because other people have _surely_ got to see them too."

"_Perhaps,"_ Mal Zin says. It smiles and reveals a set of teeth so old they almost look _brown_. Gross. _"But you are also seeing the Messengers, are you not?"_

I frown at it. "Do you mean the girls in white that keep acting like ghosts and the one that had no face? Because they are _creepy._ What are they anyway?"

"_Guardians. Messengers. Harbingers."_ Mal Zin shrugs. _"All of the above are appropriate, yet none are entirely accurate."_

"You're not as helpful as I thought you would be."

"_There is only so much knowledge that can be imparted,"_ Mal Zin says, eyes still glowing green. They remind me of tree leaves in the middle of summer. _"Much more must be learnt. If you wish to be clever, simply repeat facts that you have memorised. If you wish to be intelligent, you must act, make mistakes and learn first-hand." _It shuffles forwards, towards what seems to be yet another dirt wall in this strange prison that I've been taken to. _"Come, Seer of Legend's Fall."_

I wait behind, crossing my arms and refusing to budge an inch. "I'm not what you keep saying I am," I tell it. "Sure I see the things, but _anyone_ could! And what if I'm not this mystery person you think I am?"

It smiles at me. Somehow it's crueller than Diz's. _"Then what Diz initially told you shall become true."_

I glance at Diz, who up until then was standing in the shadows, psychically rethreading its jacket. At the mention of its name it looks up, fixes its gaze on me and nods.

"_Now come," _Mal Zin says, _"we have much to show you."_

"_Do not trust these throwbacks of nature's design."_ Kiki's voice. How do I even know that?

"I'm not going," I tell the hypno. "I want to be taken back to my brother – he doesn't know I'm here and he's going to go crazy trying to look for me. And then you can tell me why I can suddenly understand my pokémon, because it's just weird to be able to hear their voices in my head when I know they're not capable of that."

Mandy presses its face in mine before the words are even fully out of my mouth. _"Trainer understands!"_ it squawks, fluffing up like a proud altaria. _"We thought it was terminally stupid! Now it can understand and we no longer have to treat it like a half-hatchling!"_

I manage to shove Mandy's face out of mine. "I'm not an it," I mutter at it.

"_But you are an it! For if we are all 'it's to you, then you are an it to us!"_

I can't even argue Mandy's logic, because it's the same sort of argument I'd use. Besides, they just might be able to be he's and she's if they're all like Diz and have their privates flopping about in the breeze. More than that, I can hear their voices in my head and they all sound like normal, human voices and are clearly male or female, which just makes no real sense.

"_Your questions will be answered in time,"_ Mal Zin says. _"Now come, follow. Diz shall be your guardian; stay close and do not stray."_

It – _he_? – walks towards a wall of nothing but pure dirt. I snicker to myself, waiting for it to just bounce off the wall, but at the last moment the wall _shimmers_ and the hypno walks through it like it isn't even there!

Diz laughs as it suddenly appears by my side. _"Trust me Darling, the real surprise is waiting on the other side."_ It holds out a hand. _"Are you coming?"_

I stare at its hand and back at its face. It has a man's voice in my head. Diz is a he. I try to work my head around that and decide that if it's true, it's another reason for me not to hold his hand and follow him into some unknown place where I might never, ever see daylight again.

So instead I puff out my chest and walk towards the wall with as much dignity as I can muster. Mandy cheers from atop my shoulder, whilst Kiki follows me slowly, never saying a word. I press my hand against the wall; find it to be solid to the touch. I frown at it, wonder how Mal Zin managed to get through when Diz's hand touches the wall and it _ripples_ in front of my eyes.

I look up and see him smiling. It's not as unnerving as before, but still kinda weird. I swallow a lump in my throat, nod and press forwards against the wall. It gives way and I walk through.

And the world that awaits me takes my breath away.

I'm standing on a beige stone bridge and there's an entire _world_ of stone buildings beneath me, with different pathways and buildings all filled with little tiny shadows that are walking around and never noticing me and all the pokémon with me all the way up here. The stone bridge loops all the way as far as I can see, dipping occasionally to meet another bridge a little lower, which then dips to meet another one and so on.

There are statues that are as tall as these bridges. Given that I can't even really see the _ground_, they have to be really, _really_ huge. The statues aren't of anything I've ever seen before, except for one hypno with a beard and holding a sword and shield, for whatever reason.

All the buildings seem to be built with archways. I follow them for as far as my eyes can see and even then I'm sure there's more, hidden in the distance. The sounds of people working from far, far below echoes all the way up to me and I wonder just what they're building.

I spin around and stare up. There's nothing but dirt, held aloft by more thick, beige stone. It doesn't wobble, nor does it even begin to crumble. All the light comes from the building at the end of the bridge – a huge thing that looks something like a cathedral with a dome in front of it. Atop a tower where I'm sure there would usually be a bell is instead a glowing beacon of light that seems to be shining in every single colour there is, all at once.

I think I forget to breathe as I look around. I honestly start to think that if there were floating cars zooming around, they'd look perfectly at home. Little flashes of blue here and there are where more hypno are teleporting, I guess. I want to draw it, or take a picture of it or _something_ to make sure I have proof that I've been down here and seen this, but Mal Zin fixes me with a look that I know means that if I try to take a picture, it won't end well for me.

Mandy caws something my brain translates to _"Air!"_ and takes flight before I can stop it – _her_. She flies around us happily, laughing in delight as terrified cries of people far below echo all around us.

Diz sees my reaction and smiles. _"Welcome,"_ he says, throwing out a hand dramatically, _"to Alamanurr!"_

My jaw is most likely on the floor right now. Diz smiles at me and shuffles forwards a step. Kiki grunts and stands between us quickly, glowering at the other pokémon. _"Step towards Trainer again and I shall push you off this bridge."_

Well, I wasn't expecting Kiki to be as protective as that. I thought she had no soul and was only stuck with me because Dad had his kadabra brainwash her or something.

I start to feel bad that Cassie isn't here to see this with us. I let her out of her poké ball and watch as she spins around, eyes wide as she takes in everything. It seems she's as mystified as me.

Then she looks over the bridge and chortles. _"I can fly!" _she sings.

And then she jumps.

"Cassie!" I scream but I already can't see her because she's jumped off the side of the bridge and Mandy is circling and laughing and Kiki is tuttering something like, _"Stupid creature,"_ and no one's even beginning to help her!

I run to the side of the bridge just as Cassie reappears covered in a bright, bright green glow. She's dancing happily in mid-air until she's dropped into my arms and I know that Mal Zin has to have saved her and brought her back and all I can do is squeeze Cassie and promise to never let go, even if her body is as cold as ice.

I hear a sigh in my mind. _"Let us not go through that again, hm?"_

I turned and thank the old hypno. Diz is just watching and laughing like it's the funniest thing in the world whilst Kiki just glares at Cassie. Mandy's still flying around, apparently undisturbed by everything.

Then Cassie looks up and meets my eyes. _"I flew, Trainer!"_ she mumbles. _"I became one with the stars and the wind became one with me!"_

I just nod and pat her head. "Don't try and fly again, okay Cassie? At least not until you become a floating demon face."

She continues to look at me with wide eyes. Then suddenly she cries out happily and all snow and ice form over my arms. _"Trainer understands! We thought you were clueless, we did! Now you understand, will you change and learn to make ice, Trainer? If you do, may I teach you?"_

I'm distracted by the thoughts of getting to shoot beams of ice from my hands until Mal Zin clears his throat. I blush because I know that he must have seen my thoughts and decide to pretend as if nothing has ever happened.

"Stay on the bridge," I tell Cassie. "Or I'm going to keep you in your ball until we leave here."

She nods, singing happily as she spins her way across to Kiki. I don't understand what my maractus says, but it earns her a blast of ice to the foot. She yelps and Cassie laughs, dancing her way around her and singing even more.

A little bit of pressure builds in my head, just enough so that I feel uncomfortable. _"We have wasted enough time," _Mal Zin says. _"Follow me, child. We have much to teach you and a short time in which you can be taught."_

"Okay," I say and follow him. "But why do you only have a short time? What's happening?" Flashes of purple and blue and green and red happen below. I want to stop and stare to carry on watching them, but Diz shoves me gently along. Kiki threatens to remove his limbs if he ever touches me again – I'm getting slightly worried that I understand everything now – and Mandy touches down gently on my shoulder, preens and stops only for a moment to laugh at Cassie.

I see that Diz looks at Mal Zin. The old hypno nods and Diz sort of walks towards me. He moves like all those women on the catwalks do, like there are people trying to take pictures of his butt. _Sashaying_, Mum told me it was called once. I don't think I'd be able to do it – knowing my luck I'd accidentally hit something expensive with my hips and break it.

"_Darling . . . tell me something. How much do you know about war?"_

I shrug. I can tell him all sorts about all the wars that have happened in history, but I get the feeling that's not what he's after. "People kill people about something," I say, shrugging. "Mostly it's about religion or money or something like that. There's always loads of people that die and loads of bombs that rain down from the sky and vaporise people. And then everyone who wins is like, oh, our enemy was evil because they were killing women and children, but they've blown up _loads_ of them anyway with all their bombs. Or pokémon. People use pokémon in wars too."

Diz nods along, though I'm not sure how much he's actually listening to me. "_Very good, Darling."_

"Why did you want to know? Are you guys at war?"

He actually misses a step. Mandy caws with laughter and Cassie spins around him, joining in with the laughter but quite obviously not knowing why. _"I suppose we are,"_ he says and his ears droop like an upset puppy. I'm reminded instantly of the houndour and have the strange urge to pet Diz's head.

"Okay, so you're at war," I say. "That's nice and all, but that doesn't explain why I'm down here and what you've done to my brother!"

"_We will explain," _Mal Zin says. I look up and see that we've reached the _huge_ building on the end of the bridge. It towers up so high that I can't even see the top, no matter how much I lean back! The windows are bigger than me and they're all stained glass, showing different hypno in different poses. I guess it's like a timeline of their ancestors and myths or something.

I don't recall reading anything about separate pokémon myths in anything I've ever read before. All they usually happen to be are the typical God-myths and stuff about where certain pokémon might have come from. Nothing about their lineages or famous pokémon like we have famous humans. I wonder if one of them is like a hypno version of Shakespeare or Genghis Khan or Christopher Columbus.

The doors are huge and made from wood and have metal knockers on them that are bigger than my head! It looks like they could fit an entire onix through them and still have space to bring in food around it. Mal Zin waves a hand and the doors glow green and then open, revealing the inside.

I'm pretty sure my jaw hits the floor again.

Everything is open plan inside. It reminds me a little of a church, where it has rows upon rows of benches. But this one has a stage in the middle of the room and the benches fan out in circles around it. There's a huge set of stairs directly opposite the doors and I can see a single throne. Rows upon rows of shelves line the walls, full of plates and weapons and books. Loads of hypno stand around like guards, waiting by all the different corridors and – _is that a clefable?_

The thing – I _think_ it's a clefable – is like my height and wears a thick bliztle fur cloak. It carries a big stick with it that has a massive red jewel at the end and as it walks along, three hypno follow after it, their faces completely blank apart from the quick glares they throw at my pokémon and me.

"_Not yet,"_ Mal Zin says before I can speak. _"We must show you something first."_

I want to know more about the clefable and why it's walking along like a king or a mage from all my history stories, but I nod and say nothing. I get the feeling that Mal Zin won't tell me what's happening if I don't follow him, which means that I'll never find out what's going on or even what they've done to Jerry – if they've done anything to him at all and if he even knows if I'm missing.

I glance around and quickly recall Cassie before she bumps into anything and knocks it over. Given the way she was staring at a huge axe on the wall, I get the feeling that she might have tried to use it and chopped herself in half. As soon as I activate the poké ball all the hypno-guards go all tense and it looks like they're about to attack but Mal Zin holds up a hand and they stop instantly, but they still stand around giving me horrible looks, like they're imagining shoving me in a poké ball and leaving me in there for the rest of time.

"_Ignore them, Darling,"_ Diz says as he pats my shoulder. _"They just have their panties in a twist because they're itching for some action. None of them ever get any though, if you know what I mean!"_

I stare at him until he realises that I don't in fact know what he means. He sighs, shrugs and says nothing, instead continuing to make certain I follow Mal Zin up the stairs and towards the throne. I feel my heart stop beating a moment because this has to mean that I'm meeting a hypno queen! I start to imagine that she's wearing a long silver dress that sparkles like diamonds and has hair like Cynthia's and psychic powers that can make the walls melt in front of my eyes and is totally beautiful –

Can hypno even _be_ beautiful?

I feel a spark of annoyance that I'm certain didn't come from me. I look over and see that the hypno guards are all staring at me as if I'm the plague on two feet. I shrug, poke my tongue out at them and continue walking. They can't do anything when I'm with Mal Zin anyway. When he leaves, I'll make sure I'm far, far away from them and they'll never be able to find me and exact revenge!

My breath catches when I realise I'm at the top of the stairs because I'm going to meet the queen hypno! But when Mal Zin gestures to the throne I see that there's not a hypno sitting on there.

In fact, there's not even a pokémon there.

It's a dagger.

A dagger that has a pure black blade and a handle that looks like it's made from someone's spine. It shines like it has just been polished and somehow seems to be the strongest thing in the room, even with all the pokémon surrounding it.

"_This is our ancestral weapon,"_ Mal Zin says as I approach it. Mandy jumps to the floor and bounces around it, whilst Kiki stays by my side and growls words that I can't understand at anything that looks at us. _"Passed down from generation to generation; it is a weapon of darkness, used on only our mortal enemies and our worst criminals."_

I nod like I understand what he's talking about. In time I might do, because how many people have researched pokémon history? I can be famous and everything because of these hypno and their black, glowy dagger!

Diz nudges me in the side. "_Darling," _he says, his big blue eyes all shiny, _"do you sense anything?"_

"What am I supposed to sense?" I look at the dagger and wonder if the creepy girls are meant to come by again. I shudder at the thought and thankfully, they don't.

Mal Zin looks at me and then at the dagger. _"They are unconnected,"_ he says. His voice is so quiet it makes me think that I'm not meant to have heard him, but given that he said it straight into my mind I guess that I was meant to.

"_This is interesting news,"_ Mal Zin says. _"Tullis will wish to know of this."_ He looks at me and frowns. At least, I think he's frowning, but it's kinda hard to tell when his face is like one big wrinkle already. _"I must speak with our senior magus on this. Please child, take this time to relax and explore Alamanurr. Diz is your guardian – he will follow you wherever you wish to go and ensure your safety."_

I look over at Diz. He smiles back at me and waves in a way that's totally creepy, coupled with his toothy grin and tattered leather coat. I'm only convinced to go with him when Mal Zin adds, _"And he shall answer any questions you have."_

There's a flash of green and Mal Zin vanishes. I look at the dagger, balanced on a big, fluffy cushion and with a castle full of guards to protect it and can't help but wonder just what it does.

"_Darling, I wouldn't touch it if I were you,"_ Diz says, touching my arm and pulling it away.

Instantly Kiki is between us. She brings down a needly arm in the space between Diz and I and glares at him as if she might shoot lightning from her eyes. _"Stay away from her, psy-beast. I do not trust you or your kind."_

If Diz is bothered by it, he doesn't show it. Instead he just shrugs and flops his hand. _"So judgemental. You, my pretty little cactus, could stand to learn a few things about manners."_

Kiki's scowl is actually rather impressive. _"Call me that again and I will feed you to the buzzard."_

I'm just about to ask who the buzzard happens to be when Mandy leaps onto my shoulder, laughing. _"Yes, yes, kill the psychic!"_ she cackles. _"His tendons look most tender!"_

I think Diz's eye twitches a little. I smirk and look back at the dagger. "What is it?"

He shuffles towards me, though this time keeps his distance from my pokémon. _"Our ancestral weapon. Weren't you listening, Darling?"_ He seems to sigh in my brain. It's a weird sound. Like someone's stepping on crunchy biscuits and the wrapper too. _"It has been passed down for generations and was made thousands of years ago, before the reign of most of your silly human religions._

"_It carries the power of darkness,"_ he says quietly, like he's awed by it or something. _"It was made by pokémon and other creatures alike, to embody their very nature. When used against a creature of darkness, its attacks are almost fatal. It can strike ghosts and send them into the afterlife with only one cut. And when used on psychics . . . it removes our ability to perform psychic acts. Telekinesis, telepathy, empathy and so many more. All of it is forcibly stripped from a psychic, leaving them but an empty shell."_

I stare at it in new wonder. Given that it can do that, it's no wonder that it has so many guards around it. Obviously they've got to all be protecting it to make sure no one else goes crazy and steals it. I catch Mandy before she decides to run off with the dagger herself and recall her into a poké ball before she can cause any more trouble.

Again all the hypno guards seem to tense and look like they're ready to rip me to pieces. Only a look from Diz manages to keep them in place, no matter how much Kiki threatens them.

"_Darling, perhaps we should take this conversation elsewhere?"_ Diz suggests. He looks at Kiki. _"That is, if you flowering cactus allows it."_

Kiki growls. I look at her and shrug. _"There are too many,"_ she hisses _"With each attack, I will only be able to take down three at most. We will be overrun in six-point-seven seconds."_

On top of everything else today, I think the fact that my maractus seems to be a maths or tactical genius doesn't surprise me as much as it would otherwise.

"_I will . . . allow the creature to teleport us to safety,"_ Kiki finally mutters. _"But if it causes harm to Trainer, even The Giratina will not be able to save it from my wrath!"_

Diz shrugs. _"Good enough for me,"_ he says, grabs my shoulder and everything blurs in a flash of blue.

Then just as suddenly I find myself on what seems to be a street with buildings carved from old, beige stone. What I first think are people walking around with cloaks around their necks and chests, hunched over low and avoiding rows upon rows of market stalls with people shouting out things I can't quite understand.

And then I realise that they aren't quite people.

They're _hypno_.

I hear a child's scream. I spin around to see a human boy that has to be half my age that wears almost nothing but rags. He's all dirty and behind him is a tall, old grumpy looking hypno. The boy falls to the floor and the hypno hisses something, kicks him and drags him up by an ear before shoving him further into the street.

"_This place is barbaric,"_ Kiki whispers.

Diz makes a sound. _"What you call barbaric, we call intuitive. No point having our children do all the work for us, after all. Why, humans used to do this themselves many a year ago."_

"But we don't do _this_ anymore!" I protest, pointing at some man who paints the walls of a house bright white whilst a nearby hypno throws mud and what I'm fairly certain is poo all over the fresh paint.

"_Really?"_ Diz asks, getting into my face as he does so. "_I do think that there are a great many countries that happen to be doing this. You humans are so precious; you claim to be above everything that seems bad, yet you willingly ignore the places where they practice that which you so apparently despise."_

Somehow I just know he's trying to bait me into having an argument with him. Instead I blow out through my teeth and watch this new world a little more. It's like living in actual history! I mean, sure the slavery is horrible and everything and all the people are looking at me like they hate me because I don't have a collar around my neck, but it's not like I can go around freeing them! If I try that, all the hypno will capture and take me too!

I look at Diz. "How comes I understand my pokémon here? What did you do to me?"

He waves a hand at me. _"We didn't _do_ anything, Darling." _He throws his hands to the sky – or at least where there should be sky instead of a ceiling of dirt. _"You're in a field of psionic energy. Not everything that lives down here is capable of telepathy, so we found it necessary to make certain that everyone could be understood."_

"How does it work?"

He gives me a flat look. _"You wouldn't understand."_

"_I would."_

I look at Kiki like she's grown horns. Diz just shrugs and launches into an explanation that sounds like it's something out of Jerry's films. I don't understand much of it, because they're using all grown up words and I think the only thing I've manage to understand so far is something about how it went wrong and someone grew a massive tumour in their brain or something.

I don't wait until Diz has finished before asking, "Where's my brother?"

He looks at me with really wide, impossibly blue eyes. Then he smiles a creepy smile. _"We took care of him,"_ he says in such a way that shivers race down my spine. _"Your brother is so protective of you. In any other situation it would be rather sweet. In this situation, it was more troublesome. Even so, all it required was a small measure of empathic suggestion. After that, it was rather easy to make him preoccupied with other things."_

"You messed with my brother's _brain?!_" I shriek. Kiki tenses and goes to attack but somehow I manage to stop her before all the hypno in the street leap to Diz's defence or something.

Diz just giggles. _"If you must put it in such a barbaric way, then yes. We altered the way your brother thinks, if only for a short time. It will fade in perhaps three weeks – though at the moment he is occupied with entering one of your silly bloodbaths. If he wins, he seems to think his reward will be everything that young humans of his age dream of."_

It's my turn to look at him with wide eyes. Diz just sighs and shakes his head. _"Humans,"_ he says. _"So smart, yet so dense." _

I go to shout at him just as a horrible _wailing _sound fills the air. I don't know what it is but it makes my ears hurt and I'm fairly certain that my teeth are beginning to shake and Diz seems to say something and even though he says it in my mind I can't hear it over the _screaming_ sound that just keeps happening and happening!

Something grabs me and I know it has to be Kiki because nothing else is as prickly as that. I don't know what's going on because my eyes are shut because there's nothing but pain and more _pain_ and suddenly, despite everything I manage to hear Kiki hiss, _"They're coming!"_

I snap my eyes open at that, because there could be just about _anything_ coming that I've already encountered. I'm filled with horrible thoughts of zombies and gastly and steelix and then I notice that while all the human slaves have run away, all the hypno are standing strong and their eyes are glowing different colours which would be pretty cool if I had any idea what was going on!

Diz turns to me, his eyes glowing bright blue. _"The war you asked about is here, Darling. Be ready – I cannot defend you from everything."_

His voice is so calm and serious I'm stunned for a moment. Then I quickly release Mandy and Cassie and ignore the looks the other hypno are giving me because all of a sudden, the bright fake-sun atop the biggest building just goes completely dark.

Everything goes pitch black. I take a moment to realise that my eyes are shut again and when they're open, everything is black still, but I can see the eyes of all the hypno glowing in the dark.

Then something _screams_.

There's a brush of wind in front of me and the smell of leather. What I'm fairly certain is a coat drops on the floor in front of me. _"Darling, hold my jacket, would you?"_

The air in front of me lights up. I see Diz and he's standing in front of me with a bow that's nothing but pure, purple energy flaring in his arms. He draws back an arm and an arrow appears in it as I see other hypno growl and form weapons of their own. They're all different colours and some have bows as well but some have swords and shields or spears and one even seems to have a crossbow.

There's a flash of blue in the distance and Diz screams, _"Loose!" _His arrow fires from his bow and it slams into something with a wet splat and then there's a scream that seems to be louder than ever as whatever it hit falls, but it doesn't matter because I can see glowing weapons coming after us which isn't good because I don't have a weapon of my own and I could really do with one right now!

"_Take the sky, demon bird!"_ Kiki shouts from by me. Mandy screams something that's lost under all the other noise but I feel the air whip around as she takes to the sky and as the air begins to get a bit heavier I know that Kiki has to be releasing loads and loads of cotton spores to slow everything down.

And by my side, Cassie is shivering and singing, _"The animals come in two by two, hurrah, hurrah."_ Despite everything I find myself singing along with her, just to distract myself from everything because I can't see what's happening and my mind is coming up with all sorts of horrible situations for me to be trapped in.

Cassie sings the last line wrong. _"And they all came to heaven's gate and died in horrible pain~!"_

And then the world freezes over.

Ice erupts from everywhere and it shins in different colours as it passes by all the different hypno and freezes over whatever they happen to be battling. I turn to gape at where I'm certain Cassie has to be and see nothing but the bright blue of her eyes that glow hauntingly in the dark.

Something brushes near me in the dark. _"Darling, you may wish to close your eyes."_

I'm about to argue when the first flare of light nearly blinds me. Even with my eyes shut, I still see spots and have a hard time trying to fight the pain my eyes are in. My ears are still hurting from all the screeching sounds before and I'm sure I can feel my heartbeat in the tops of my head.

When I open my eyes, I see a circle of blood around me. Kiki stands protectively by my side, glaring at anything that comes near us. Mandy is sat atop a corpse of something that looks like it's mummified and made out of metal bones, but that doesn't stop her from plucking free an eyeball and chomping it down.

Meanwhile Cassie is happily sliding over all the ice as if nothing weird has happened.

I take a step forwards and don't even think about the blood underneath my shoes. Glowing purple arrows stand in the bodies of pokémon I don't recognise from where Diz has taken them down. I go to poke them, think better of it and round on him.

"You killed those men in that blacked out car, didn't you?"

He looks down at me, his face impassive for a long moment. Then he smiles suddenly. _"I did_," he says. _"And I would do it again. They knew who you were, Darling. They were going to take you away and find out everything you knew about the Legend's Fall. I couldn't let that happen."_

I swallow heavily. How did they manage to find me? I haven't seen anything weird and it's not like I've told anyone that I've been seeing dead legends. I look up at Diz for answers and he just shrugs and takes his jacket from me. I blink, not even aware that I've been holding it all this time.

I turn away from him and back to the dead pokémon. I walk up to Mandy and she caws happily at my approach.

"_Trainer! You are much too thin! You are skin and bones – much like my meals! Have some intestine – it will fatten you up well!"_

I make a face. "I don't want any," I say.

Mandy seems to shrug. _"Suit yourself_," she says. Then she reaches into the pokémon's mouth and rips out its tongue.

I try my best to ignore Mandy and her eating habits. "What is it?" I ask, poking the pokémon with my boot. Its skin is all black and shrivelled, like it's one of those mummies in the pyramids. It looks like it's skeleton is on the outside and it shines like it's made of steel, and I'm pretty sure it's somehow got what looks like a _sword_ growing naturally from one of its arms.

"_That would be a bisharp, Darling."_

I nod, like that means something to me. "What's one of those?"

"_Our enemy_," Diz says. He places a hand on my shoulder. _"Come,"_ he says. _"We'll get you rested up. Once you're well, we shall explain everything you want to know."_

I go to argue that I'm not that tired, but suddenly the need for sleep comes over me. I don't know how or where it's come from, but the last thing I see before I succumb is the spinning of a single pendant.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note:<strong> __Hey guys. Usually I don't like doing these sort of things, but I am. So that's that. Anyway, I'm taking this time to let you guys know that I've now got a twitter account set up for you all to stalk/follow for information on updates and that sort of thing, given that they're being rather sporadic at the moment._

_Also, more importantly; do any of you happen to speak French? Like mother tongue or fluently? Without giving too much away, there's some need for Frenchy-ness in later chapters, but my own knowledge of the language gets worse and worse as the weeks go on and google is more than useless with it's silly translations. So... yeah. Anyone wanna help? I will repay you in mentions and internet hugs.  
><em>

_Also, Regret/Transgression might be up on AO3 soon. I blame Skitty. She's a bully.  
><em>


	14. Enemies Among Us

_Dear Diary,_

_It would seem that there are entire colonies – worlds even, hidden away from the waking surface. Some are hidden in caves. Some underground. Some even in the middle of forests or otherwise populated areas._

_They thrive on hiding in plain sight._

_I need to learn from them._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Enemies Among Us|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

When I wake up, I have the brief few seconds of complete and utter calm as my brain takes the time to catch up on everything that's happened.

The moment it does, I leap out of the random bed I've been placed in, screaming, "What the hell's going on?" as the covers become tangled around my feet and I end up face-first on the floor.

A flash of blue appears somewhere in front of me. I manage to roll over and glare up at Diz as he smiles down at me with his creepy smile that looks like it belongs on some sort of creepy clown.

_"Darling, you're awake!"_ he declares. He even looks like he's about to hug me. Creep.

"No thanks to you," I spit as I throw the covers at him. "Or your stupid ancient hypno-thing. What's going on?" I demand. My poké balls aren't by my side. In fact, aside from the bed, the room is completely barren. The walls are some sort of dank grey, the ground is actually yet more dirt and I'm fairly certain that's what the ceiling is comprised of too.

Diz shrugs. _"Darling, there's a lot to explain to you. I had thought it possible to explain a little at a time, so that you could adjust. However . . . as you can see, things may have escalated above and beyond our control."_

I just glare at him. "That didn't answer my question."

He sighs. At least, I think it's a sigh. It sounds like static in my brain and feels like the whisper of a breeze against the base of my neck. I don't like it.

_"We are at war, Darling. Humans are not the only creatures who fight amongst themselves. Tell me; what do you know of The Celebi?"_

I shrug, suddenly self-conscious. "They're meant to be legends, things that can travel through time, right?" I think about what I've read on them. "I think someone said that they're meant to 'preserve the timeline' or whatever that means." I make a face. "It sounded like something out of one of Jerry's games.

"They're meant to be able to control nature or something, as well as having psychic powers. I think I read a book where the guy said that they were made to control the way the world progressed, or something. To make sure that everything proceeded in the way the the Original God wanted, or something?" I scratch my head. "Who's the Original God? I thought it was The Arceus, but when I mentioned that to my dad's kadabra, it just laughed at me."

Diz shuffles over to the bed and sits on it. He pats his hand next to him, as if he wants to sit me there. Instead I remain firmly routed to the spot. He shrugs when he realises that I'm not going to move. _"The Original God . . . He's a belief amongst pokémon, much like how humans have their own religions and gods. You see Darling, Arceus isn't _the_ god, instead simply a holder of godlike power. Every so often - perhaps every other millennia - the last creature of a pokémon's line will challenge the strongest pokémon for total power. Before Arceus, Regigigas was what you humans seem to believe is our god. _

_"We can try and chase it back, though there is only so far that even our smartest and oldest creatures can look. So we believe that once, this power was held by an actual god - one that created the world, Dialga, Palkia and everything that is currently associated with Arceus."_

I frown as I think about it. "So all the pokémon are fighting over who gets to be the next god?"

Diz laughs. _"No Darling, nothing like that. Those wars are fought on individual terms - lest we fall into civil war once more." _He shudders. _"Though it would be best not to even mention such days. No, pokemon are fighting over something else entirely - something to do with Celebi."_

I nod and sit on the floor, cross legged. Diz seems to take this as a compromise for me not sitting next to him. _"The Celebi were in fact, designed to keep true to the timeline. They were to make certain that nothing was too powerful, nothing too weak. They made adjustments along the way - making psychics weak to attacks from creatures of darkness, making us weak to insects and ghosts. Before, psychics were too powerful - though I doubt one as you would remember such times."_

I do my best and find that I can't think of anything similar to what he's talking about.

_"As far as we're aware, the Celebi are charged with leading the universe into the final end-plan; those that will share information with you will tell you that time is like a spider web. You move from the outside going in, able to take as many choices as you like, though eventually, all roads lead to the final destination. Naturally, with the power they have, some have chosen to rebel against the designs placed on them. They think they should be allowed to shape the world in the way they see fit._

_"Green and pink," _Diz says, producing a ball of light in each hand, green in his left, pink in his right. _"Those are the colours of Celebi and the two opposing sides of the war. Many pokémon have joined in the fight, though you can never tell what side they truly fight for. A green coloured pokémon may fight for the pinks and vice versa."_

"Then how am I meant to tell what side's what?"

Diz smiles at me. _"That's not something you have to worry about. You are the Seer of Legend's Fall - you cannot take sides. Your task is much greater, Darling. You are the one who must find the killer of legends and stop them. As bothersome as prophecies happen to be, it just so happens that you are the fated child, destined to witness Legend's Fall. Only you will be able to decide what happens afterwards."_

My hands are trembling, even as I clench them to try and stop them. "What do I have to decide?"

His face goes blank. _"Who lives, who dies. Who gets power, who becomes weak. The colour of the sky, the temperature of hell. Darling, for all I know, your decision may only revolve around the world's fashion choices for the next millennia." _He looks me up and down and throws his big nose into the air. _"Which, if your current attire is anything to go by, means that we are all doomed to a drab and dull life."_

"You're a _pokémon,_" I point out. "You shouldn't even be wearing any clothes!"

He picks the threads of his tattered leather jacket and twirls his fur collar around a finger. _"Darling, who are you to say who and who can't wear what? Would you like to go around and tell everything that those muscle-bound fighters are no longer allowed to dress in clothing? I've seen your mind - your brother's own pokémon wears human clothing."_

The image of Punch in his martial arts clothes floats in my mind. I try my best to block it out, but it stays there, spinning around in my brain like someone's glued it to the inside of my head.

"That's different," I say. "Punch is a trained pokémon. He's not allowed to go around naked."

_"And who decided that?"_ Diz asks. "_Humans decide everything for everyone, do they? I dare say it would make life fantastically more interesting if humans stopped wearing clothes. Why, imagine the scandals public attraction might cause!"_ He actually throws his arms together and _squees_. _"Listen to me, Darling. You are the Seer of Legend's Fall. You are the one that will witness the destruction of the world whilst everyone else believes everything to be fine."_

Bright blue light shines in my face. I scrunch my eyes shut and instantly there's another flash, bright enough for me to still feel blinded, even with my eyes closed. A soft, inhumanely long finger curls under my chin and lifts my face up. When I open my eyes, Diz's face is in mine and his eyes are deadly serious.

"_The rules of humanity will soon no longer apply to anyone or anything. Forget what you know, Darling - the world will soon change, whether you're ready for it or not. Open your eyes, or you will lead everyone to their doom."_

He vanishes just like that, leaving me alone in the darkness with only his words to keep me company.

**-O-O-O-**

I only realise that I've fallen asleep again when I feel someone trying to nudge me awake. I groan and bury my face in the pillows, wanting just five more minutes of blissful, dreamless sleep.

Then whatever's trying to wake me pinches me on the back of the legs.

I shriek and I'm awake instantly. I spin around in the bed, get tangled in the covers _again_ and just about have time to breathe in before I'm attacked by a massive lump.

"_Trainer's awake!"_ Mandy caws. _"You should have eaten some of the dead, Trainer! Then you would be strong and not likely to fall asleep as easily!"_

I make a face at the mental image of just what she wants me to do. "Maybe next time," I mutter. Cassie's dancing by my feet. Even with both my shoes and my socks on – and I must have been tired, to fall asleep with even my shoes on – I can feel the cold numbing my toes. Meanwhile Kiki's in a corner of my boring, depressing _prison cell_, glaring out at everything and seemingly everyone.

"_I don't like this place,"_ she growls.

"Neither do I," I say. "But what can we do? I don't even know where we are or what's really going on, but all I know is that apparently the hypno are at war and it's something to do with The Celebi."

Kiki's eyes seem to widen. _"What about The Celebi?"_

I shrug. "He didn't say much, just that they're divided in whether they should keep maintaining the timeline or just end it." I scrunch up my nose. "Or at least, something like that. I don't know, it was kinda confusing."

Kiki frowns. _"Interesting,"_ she mutters, but before I can even open my mouth to ask her what she means, the door to my room opens and I find myself staring at three hypno, all stood protectively around a little clefable that I'm sure I recognise.

It gestures with its long, ruby-tipped staff and the hypno behind it just seem to vanish into thin air. The cloak of blitzle fur the clefable wears somehow manages to float just above the ground, managing to make it look all kingly without ever getting dirty.

It looks at me. Its eyes are an impossible shade of green. _"You are the Seer,"_ it says. It speaks to me like my pokémon do – I hear nothing but grunts and growls, yet somehow my brain is translating the words. I find that I can't quite manage to think of anything to say back to it. _"My name is Beel. I am sorry you have been dragged into our conflict, though I feel as Seer, you would have had this life thrust upon you sooner rather than later, regardless of our actions."_

"Uh . . . okay?" I say, intelligently. "So what's going on here?"

It gestures with its staff. Fire blossoms in a little ball from the tip of it, hovering just slightly in the air. Kiki and Cassie both hiss and back away, whilst Mandy caws with interest. _"Perhaps it would be within both our interests to show you?"_

It turns and starts walking from the room. I start to think that this is my chance – I can run from here, find my way out of this weird place and then I'll never have to deal with these weird pokémon and all their insanity again! But as quickly as the thought comes, I realise that I have _no_ idea where I am, let alone how I'd even manage to get out.

I grab Mandy and guide her towards my shoulder. She sits there happily, nipping at my hair. I'm going to end up like one of those crazy women with one side of my head shaved in no time at all. Cassie dances happily around my feet, keeping up with me easily whilst Kiki stalks after us like my shadow – except with slightly more murderous intent.

The clefable – Beel – glances back only once to make sure I'm following it. It smacks its staff on the floor and the fireball _zooms_ off through the air and suddenly all the torches on either side of the room start glowing, all at once! I see that I'm in a corridor made of white stone, with loads of framed paintings on the walls of clefables and hypno and some clefairy – there's even the occasional wigglytuff! Podiums line the halls, on top of which are little pieces of armour or weapons and there's even one with a little bronze statue of what I think is a rhydon.

It's a _castle_, I realise. An actual castle, built in this kingdom of hypnos and underneath the world! It's so awesome!

"_As you no doubt have been told, you are in the Kingdom of Alamanurr,"_ Beel says. _"Our kingdom stretches across most of the surface world you call Kanto. We range from beneath Silver Mountain, all the way to the land of the dead, far off in the east. From here we watch, we wait and we live."_

It slaps its staff on the floor again. The wall in front of us just _crumbles _away and reveals a balcony! I follow Beel onto it and feel a whip of wind across my face. I'm back outside, staring down at the entire kingdom again. The big glowing fake-sun is on again and even though I'm _miles_ from the ground, I can still see there's almost no trace of any sort of fights that happened. I know that my internal clock might be just the slightest bit confused right now, but I'm sure that it can't be _that_ confused!

A lone gargoyle sits on the end of the balcony, overlooking the world. It seems to be carved completely from stone and looks almost exactly like the pictures of aerodactyl that I've seen.

Then the gargoyle whips its head around and stares at me!

I shriek as it opens its mouth and reveals rows upon rows of tiny sharp teeth. Kiki hisses and Cassie screams as the aerodactyl spreads its wings and suddenly takes off into the sky and starts circling the castle!

"Oh my god!" I say breathlessly. "Was that real?" Mandy tries to fly after it. I catch her and hold her until she stops squirming. No way is she chasing after one of those! If it is real, then she's going to get eaten by it in one huge gulp!

"_Things down here are much different to your surface world,"_ Beel says. _"Suffice it to say, I could spend months down here explaining things to you and even then, you would still not know the full extent of what actually happens to be occurring._

"_Instead, I shall explain to you what is necessary. You are witnessing the Fall of Legends. It has been prophesised that eventually, those with godlike power would be killed one by one until none remained."_

"But that _can't_ be me!" I say. "I mean sure, I saw a couple of dead legendary pokémon, but that doesn't mean that I'm this weird prophesised person! Because they're always orphans and have really weird histories and whatever and I'm just boring!"

Beel smiles at me. _"We have no control over what we are. Listen to the Heralds. You will not be able to stop the Fall, no matter how much you try. Only when the time is right will your actions have any consequences."_

"Okay," I say uncertainly. "What do I do until then?"

The clefable shrugs. _"You live. You go about your life and do what it is you wish to. Should you perish, another will rise to take your place. Make no mistake child; though you are part of something that is thousands of years in the making, you are not immortal. There will be no higher power making certain that you survive."_

"_She has survived much already,"_ Kiki growls. _"Much more than other humans would have been able to endure."_

"_Perhaps this is true. That does not guarantee her life, however. Even the most accomplished of warriors may still die of illness at home. One who lives by the sword does not always die by it."_

"_I do not like your words."_

Beel doesn't even bother looking back at Kiki. _"I do not care for what you like. I rule this kingdom – their safety is my concern. You are an outsider, regardless of what you may or may not be. Now –"_ he looks up at me, his eyes shadowed –_"there is something I must show you. The true extent to this war."_

He smacks his staff on the floor once more. Nothing crumbles. There's no sudden flames or lightning in the sky. We're on the balcony one second and the next, we're in somewhere that's almost completely dark. Something drips in the near distance. It smells like blood, sweat and what I really hope isn't actually poo.

I look up and see metal bars all around us. I panic, thinking for a second that Beel has warped us into prison but then something _screams_ and throws itself against the bars! It looks almost exactly like one of those creepy metal-mummies that I saw before, except that this one is still hurt, with blood leaking out from its chest and its missing an entire _foot_.

It's screaming so much as it slices madly at Beel, never quite managing to reach him. I don't manage to understand all of what it screams, but I manage to understand all the curses and the threats of slow, painful death. I back away from it slightly as Mandy flutters around it, taunting it and laughing as she stays forever out of its reach.

"_This one is sad,"_ Cassie whispers from behind me. _"She used to see the world, now she sees only with her eyes."_

I turn around and find Cassie stood in front of another cell. It's almost completely dark in there, but I manage to see it. At first I think it's a human, because she has long hair that reaches her shoulders and seems to be wearing a big puffy dress full of bows. But then all at once the bows _blink_ and eyes swivel round in all of them to look at me. The pokémon sits there in the darkness, the eyes in her head a bright, shining blue and I see that there's some sort of metal collar not only around her neck, but digging _into_ it at the base of her head. Blood runs in a trickle from a cut underneath her hair.

She looks so _sad_. I want nothing more than to unlock her and set her free.

Beel's staff _whaps_ against my hands. I yelp and jump backwards as he fixes me with a stern look. _"Gothitelle are masters of empathy,"_ he tells me. _"Even with their psychic abilities locked, they are masters of body language. The moment you let her out, she would rip you to pieces and claim your eyes. They use the eyes of others to boost their own abilities. Human eyes would allow her to understand human culture as easily as you do."_

I take my hand from the bars and shudder. The pokémon inside still looks so sad, except now that I'm starting to back away, she opens her mouth and reveals razor-sharp teeth within that I can't help but imagine chomping down on my neck.

"_Why do you wish to show us a dungeon?"_ Kiki growls. _"If you wanted to make us allies, this would be one of the worst ways to do so."_

"_I am not doing this to scare you into obeying me,"_ Beel says. _"I am simply showing you this so you might understand what awaits you, should you be captured by the wrong people."_ He fixes his eyes on me. I feel them burn into my brain in a way that they shouldn't be able to. _"There will come a time when you will be the last hope. We can only hope that we have taught you all we can, for yours will be the choice that shapes everything in the years to come."_

**-O-O-O-**

"_You must learn to defend yourself. If fate has chosen you, then she is a cruel mistress to make you so woefully unprepared for the tasks ahead."_

Beel told me that the last time I saw him. In fact, save for seeing my pokémon at the end of each day and the constant shadow that seems to be Diz, I don't really get to see much of anyone at the moment. Apart from my personal guard. He's another hypno that wears a long sort of robe that's covered in purple and orange patches. His fur pokes out from beneath it all the time - actual fur, not like Diz and his fake-fur collars - and he's always wearing an old hat that I'm sure all the farmers on tv wear.

But any time I have to leave my room, he's always with me, even if Diz or my pokémon are there. Mal Zin said it was because they wanted to make sure I was safe, but I'm not entirely sure anyone whose clothes hurt my eyes like that should be in charge of keeping me safe. At least he agrees with me about my so-called teachers.

Seriously! I mean, I've finished school and as much as I _do_ want to go back and study, this is _so_ not what I had in mind! And it's the weirdest sort of learning ever, because there's just this creepy old looking hypno that sits there with glowing red eyes! I would think they were blood, if they weren't so bright and shiny and if I hadn't already seen all that blood that was so dark and crusty. He never says much of anything, but he's always _thinking_ things and somehow, all those thoughts are going in my brain.

And it's not like they're even teaching me anything I don't already know! Just stuff about what plants I can eat in the wild, how to hide myself from scary things that want to eat me and how to know when the weather might change randomly.

I mean if I'm going to be taught something by a _psychic_ pokémon, I'd at least like to be taught how to explode people's heads with my thoughts!

_"Darling,"_ Diz says after what must be a week of this, _"you need to reduce your thoughts on needless slaughter. Even were we capable of teaching you such a thing, do you really think we would, given that you seem so eager to do so?"_

"I would teach me!" I declare. It doesn't have the desired effect. I sigh and watch him leave the room I've been moved to. It's so huge I thought I would get lost in it at first! It's like something out of a fairy tale, with its big bed and windows that are taller than me and a balcony that lets me see over the entire underworld kingdom!

But . . . it's kinda boring. I keep asking about my brother and the hypno just tell me that he's fine and when I'm ready to go back to the world, he'll be released from whatever psychic thing they did to his brain, then he'll start freaking out about me again. Apparently Ali's fine too and so are my parents - which is more than slightly scary, given that my parents are trying hard _not_ to be noticed.

But even they can't seem to find Craig.

I land on my bed with a sigh. Since the bed's far too big for me, Mandy has taken to building herself a nest at the foot of the bed. Cassie somehow convinced one of the hypno to make her a hammock that swings constantly above the bed, whilst Kiki tends to remain lurking in some shadowy corner, stretching her roots out into the pots of soil and sand that the hypno brought in for her.

Even still, there's enough room on the bed for me to sleep and have a massive pile of books covering one side. If my parents could see this now, they'd scream and shout until they were blue in the face! But they're not here, so I can happily leave all my books on the other side of the bed and read them when I feel like.

Which as it turns out, isn't anytime soon because I'm sure I've read all of them from front to back and still can't understand them. I mean, not only are they full of so many adult words, but they're full of diagrams that are filled with numbers and arrows and little sketchy-drawings! I mean who would be that evil to make even pictures difficult to understand?

But what I've learnt is that pokémon _do_ have myths of their own. Different pokémon have different gods and believe in different things. And they've got so much history, which is nothing short of awesome! But all their accounts are completely different to what all the books I've ever gotten from human places say, so either someone's lying or there's like a huge conspiracy going on somewhere!

I grin to myself as I imagine becoming famous for telling the world everything they know is wrong. People would run around screaming, pulling out their hair and crashing their cars into buildings, others would drop to their knees and ask their gods why and all the while, their pokémon would be going insane in the background and attacking everything that moved.

Mal Zin keeps telling me that my thoughts are far too dark for a girl of my age. I just smiled at him and told him everything I've seen already. Apparently that shut him up for a while. Then he came in later, mumbling stuff that I couldn't quite understand, then finally turned round to me and said, "It seems you are gifted with mental strength rather than physical. Let us hope it is enough."

No one's told me what that's supposed to mean. Every time I learn something, I just get a little bit more confused. Beel said once that was the essence of learning, but that just makes it sound like I'm gonna be down here studying forever!

"When's everyone coming back?" I wonder aloud.

_"They will be coming soon."_

I shrug as the mental voice of my guard drifts into my brain. I still don't know his name, so I call him Pontigrew, if only to myself. He _looks_ like a Pontigrew. Whenever I think it, he just smiles, so he can't be that offended by it.

I look out the window and see darkness beginning to swell by the glass. It looks evil and ominous, like something I'd expect to see in the movies. In a way, I'm reminded of Eterna and all the gastly.

Even so, I move over to the windows and open them. The first time I did so, Diz nearly had a heart attack. But even as the darkness swirls and dances and begins to suck all the light out of my room, I feel safe.

For from the darkness, Mandy emerges.

_"Trainer!"_ she caws happily, bouncing around on the floor. _"I can cloak in the dead of night! I shall be able to seek my own prey soon, rather than the carrion of others!"_ She flaps her wings and flies a little into the air. _"Let the others seek me and ask for scraps of my kills!"_

She makes a sound I know to be a laugh. I grin back at her and offer her my shoulder to sit on. She accepts happily and begins twirling my hair around my ears with her beak. It's kinda cute really - though I'd never tell her that. She's starting to look all gangly and weird, like her neck is suddenly too long and her wings too short for her body, but apparently that's just her getting older. A few more years and she'll be a full mandibuzz and maybe even big enough for me to fly on!

Mandy sticks her face into mine. One of her beady eyes scrutinises me. _"You are as thin as a corpse, Trainer. You must eat!"_

I touch my tummy. "I'm not that skinny!" I protest. "I just never grow! Mum says she was like this until she was a teenager and then suddenly she got a fat bum. And boobs." I look down my top and try to imagine what it'll look like soon enough. It'd be weird not being able to see my feet whenever I look down.

_"You must eat!"_ Mandy tells me again. _"It will help you be big and strong! Then you will be able to fight off all the others that attempt to steal your food!"_

I go to tell her that I don't have to fight off people for my food, but I remember that we've had this conversation countless times already. Explaining human things to pokémon is hard. It's like trying to describe colour to blind people.

"I just ate," I tell her instead, as I try not to remember the _thing_ that the hypno-teacher made me eat. It looked like brains and tasted like wet paper. Whatever it was, I can still feel the sickly way it slid down my throat. Even that memory alone is almost enough to make me want to throw up.

Mandy's critical eye runs me up and down. _"If you say so_," she says, clearly disbelieving. _"But if you get much thinner, then you will be attacked by flocks of my kind. They will think you walking food, Trainer."_ She throws back her head in a happy caw. _"My kind would be envious of the ghost-plague in the forest town. Feasting there would have been so much fun!"_

"Please don't remind me of that," I say. Even now I still sometimes see something shuffling in the distance and think it might be them again. I mean, if they've done it once, what's to stop them doing it again? By the way that woman Ryan spoke about things; it seems that it happens all the time.

There's a knock on my door just before it opens and Cassie skips in. She shivers as she looks up at us, her breath forming in the air as normal. _"Do they remember, Trainer?"_ she asks.

I look at her as Pontigrew shuts the door behind her. "Who? Remember what?"

She spins in a circle. _"Hosting the mind of another! A ghostly mind, filled with noxious things! Terrible, terrible things!"_ She spins once more and stops, looking up at me with wide eyes. _"A mortal mind cannot handle ghostly thoughts."_

Mandy titters in confusion. "What do you mean?" I ask.

But Cassie's already forgotten what she said. She skips to the side of the wall and coats it in a thick sheen of frost. _"This place does not like the cold,"_ she mutters, glaring angrily at the walls.

I sigh and give up. Speaking to Cassie is always like trying to speak with a brick wall. Except I imagine that a brick wall would give straight forward answers. Cassie's tend to be something like a wicked witch in a fairy tale would say to get others to do her bidding. I eye her suspiciously, waiting for the moment she bursts into human form with a big wart on the end of her nose! Nothing happens, so I decide that she's safe, for now.

It's at that moment that Diz decides to teleport into my room, Kiki in tow. I shriek as Mandy takes to the sky and Cassie spins around, firing shards of ice. Kiki hisses and spraws cotton fluff everywhere as Diz throws out his hands and there's a sudden bubble of purple light that just _appears_ in the air and all the ice just bounces off it as all the cotton fluff spins around inside and Mandy just shrieks and pecks at the outside.

I glare at Diz and try to pretend that my heart isn't about to run away from inside my chest. "Can't you give some sort of warning or something? You're meant to knock before you enter a girl's room!"

"_I am? How dreadfully boring,"_ he sighs. _"Very well. I suppose I can abide such silly customs for now. Honestly, you humans and your weary rules. I don't see why you wish for privacy when most of you want nothing more than to see each other without any clothes on at all."_

"Ew!" I groan at that. "Why would I want to see _anyone_ naked?!"

"_Of course, I also forget it takes you all longer than us to discover the joys in such things."_

"You're weird."

"_And you're uncouth."_ He flashes me a smile. _"I do wish I still know you when you mature, Darling. I want nothing more than to remind the older you how naïve the younger you really was."_

"Whatever," I grunt.

"_Continue teleporting in unannounced and none of us will live much longer," _Kiki grunts. She shakes a fist at him. Her arms rattle. Everyone always says that maractus are meant to make sounds like maracas when they move, but I've always thought that Kiki sounds more like a snake with a rattle on the end of its tail. _"For something that can read minds, you are woefully inept at understand how another's mind works."_

"_Bah! Why would I want to bother with understanding how the minds of others work? They're always so dreadfully tiresome! I have enough in my own mind without dealing with the grief and self-loathing other people drown themselves in."_

Diz always has to point out the bad things about everything. I mean, I would have thought that reading minds would be awesome! How amazing would it be to just be able to _know_ what someone was thinking? It would have been awesome in school – and not just for the tests. I _know_ that Gina Maxwell was always hiding something behind her snooty laugh and everything – it would have been so awesome to just have a pokémon that could have ripped out her thoughts and made me know them all!

Or better yet, just wipe over her thoughts entirely and make her my slave! Then I could mind-wipe anyone that I didn't like and they could all do exactly what I told them!

"_And you wonder why Mal Zin gives you such strange looks at time, Darling."_

I cross my arms and pout at him. "That's _rude_," I say. "You shouldn't be listening to _my_ thoughts."

"_Rather hard, considering you're like a foghorn with such things. I thought you were practising on psychic shielding?"_

"That makes no sense to me!" I shout. "How am I meant to think of my mind being surrounded by walls and traps and minefields if I'm not allowed to even _picture_ such a thing? It's too confusing! I thought mindreading and all that stuff was meant to be easy!"

"_But it's not, Darling,"_ Diz says. _"You're lucky your parents acclimatised you to telepathy when you were younger. The first time you are exposed, it changes the very basic structure of your brain, much like radiation. The pain is immense, I have heard."_

"_Simple is boring,"_ Cassie chimes in. She looks away from what seems to be the beginnings of a picture made out of frost on the wall. It could also just be random scribblings – it's hard to tell with her. _"Everything is complicated. Strings upon waves upon balls upon mazes. Nothing wants to accept simple, for we are so woefully complex."_ She turns back to her frost sculpture and tilts her head. _"Two hands are not enough. He should have five!"_

"_Is that creature ever going to make sense?"_ Diz sighs.

I shrug. "You're the mind reader! Why can't you see if you can understand her?"

Diz rolls his eyes at me. _"Darling, reading that one's mind would be the mental equivalent of running on your hands through an ever-changing maze whilst blindfolded. If I try to delve in there, I'm terrified I'll never get back out._

"_Now Darling," _Diz says to me, _"you need to remember that sooner or later, you're going to have to go back to the surface world. These trinkets you covet aren't going to help you attain the strength you truly need."_

I glare at him, understanding immediately. "But I need those badges!" I argue. "Without them, I won't get to go to the school I want to go to! And if I don't go there to study history like I want to, how am I ever going to be smart enough to understand anything of what I want to do?"

He sets his mouth in a thin line. _"I suppose there is that, but even so -"_

All at once, the lights die. All the lights are torches with burning flames. No wind whips around the room. There's no water splashing everywhere to douse them.

Diz's eyes shine bright blue in the darkness. "What's going on?" I demand of him, hoping that my voice doesn't betray how scared I am.

"_If you are behind this, I will stake you to the ground and let the sunlight bleach your bones!" _Kiki growls.

Diz blinks. His eyes are the only light in my room. _"This isn't my doing,"_ he says. He sounds frightened. I swallow and feel for Mandy on my shoulder. She nudges against me, pressing her feathery body to mine. With her around, I feel just a bit safer from any random psychics and their mind-tricks.

Then the door blows inwards with a massive _boom_ and something stands there with bright green, glowing eyes. Diz hisses something but the green-eyed thing blinks and suddenly there's a massive blast of _something_ that feels like a wall that hits me and sends me flying!

I gasp from my sudden position on the floor. A moment passes, my brain swimming as I try to remember how I got here. I roll across the floor, the sounds of my pokemon groaning in confusion filling my ears and Diz's bright blue eyes glowing from the other side of the room.

And then all of a sudden there's a rush of air as bright glowing green fills my vision and I'm lifted up from the floor and I scream because I don't know what's going on and there's something sharp being pressed against my neck and -

Something hot and wet trickles down against my neck. The glowing green thing makes a sound like a wet gurgle and suddenly it's like I've been hit in the face by a hose full of something hot and wet and what smells like pennies. The green thing falls back and I hit the floor as it drops me and ever so slowly I see the green eyes darkening and beginning to fade.

"_Darling,"_ Diz whispers as his hands circle my shoulders. _"I know it's a stupid question, but are you alright?"_

"I'm okay," I breathe, suddenly remembering how to do just that. I feel Mandy flutter down by my side and tutter about what a state I've gotten myself into. Kiki grumbles a quick thanks to Diz - which is something in itself.

I only know Cassie's by my feet when I feel the cold begin to wash over them. _"There is power in blood,_" she says mysteriously. _"Many seek it. Others kill for it. Blood marks, Trainer. Be wary."_

I rub my hand against my face and feel the liquid smear across my cheeks, in my hair and in my nose. "B-blood?" I whisper, horror starting to set in.

"_He is dead,"_ Cassie says. _"His treacherous soul has left. The only songs he sings now will be symphonies of pain."_ She titters something that even my weird brain-translator can't catch and then sighs, _"I was wrong. He has more than five arms."_

The warmth around my legs lets me know that she's moved away from me.

"_There's something wrong with that one,"_ Diz observes.

"Leave her alone," I say quickly. I become aware of his arms around my shoulders once more and fidget just a little. "And thanks," I say. "What was that?"

"_No time,"_ Diz says, his eyes still glowing. _"Wait here,"_ he says, pressing me against the floor. I go to argue against him, but in the darkness and with only three pokemon and a dead _thing_ in front of me, I don't think my chances are all that good.

Light sparks from the other end of the room. I scrunch my eyes shut and flinch away from it as it burns bright orange against the walls. Diz's shadow stretches impossibly over the wall and I see my pokemon surrounding me, the fire dancing in their eyes and illuminating their concern.

And at my feet, I see Pontigrew's dead body.

"_I am sorry,"_ Diz says.

I stare at Pontigrew's lifeless face for what feels like forever. I know that I should feel some sort of hurt. When Mum's grandma died, she cried for over a week about it. It still hurts when I think about Craig having gone missing.

But now . . . I don't feel much of _anything_. "It's alright," I say as I wipe my face on a sleeve. "I didn't really know him anyway." It's true; I didn't. Save for the occasional smile or him letting me know that someone was coming to visit me, we never really spoke. Sure I named him, but I never knew what his actual name was, or even if he had one.

"_Even your own kind turns against you," _Kiki grumbles. _"This war you speak of is much worse than you would have us believe."_

"_I suppose it is,"_ Diz says. _"But this isn't the time for such discussions. Here."_ He hands me the torch he's lit. It bathes everything nearby in bright orange, except Mandy, who seems to be nothing more than a bird-like shadow creeping in the edges of my vision. _"Your night vision is possibly the worst. Even if it's not, you can't defend yourself like the rest of us can."_

Just like that, I'm useless again. It's like being told to sit in the car and look after it when everyone else has something really important to do. My first thought is to protest, to tell Diz that I _can_ defend myself, but then I remember the bisharp and their arm-swords and the gothitelle and their general creepiness.

"Fine," I say. "Mandy, stay on my shoulder. Kiki, you stay behind me and Cassie - _come back here!"_ I hiss as she dances off into the corridor. She returns to me, shivering still and avoiding the torch as much as she can. "Stay by my side." She nods and I try my best to ignore the fact that my hands are melting as my feet are freezing. "Okay." I take a deep breath. "I guess you've got to lead us out of here."

Diz looks at me with something I can't quite identify in his eyes. Finally he nods and all at once a brilliant purple, glowing bow appears in his hands. _"Stay close,"_ he says. _"If we're being attacked from the inside, trust no one."_

I want to say that if that's true, I shouldn't trust him either. I can see on Kiki's face that she wants to say exactly that too. But we look at each other and an unspoken conversation occurs between the two of us. I don't know how it happens or even what it means, but somehow we manage to look at each other and just _know_ what the other is thinking.

The corridor glows orange under my torch light. It feels like I'm acting out one of Jerry's games. Details on the walls become apparent to me as if I've never seen them before. I see the cracks where age has hit them. The little bits of lighter stone where something's been replaced. I'm reminded of one of Grandpa's favourite phrases - if these walls could talk. Usually he always laughs toothlessly and tells even _Jerry_ that he's too young to hear such things. I think about what Grandpa could possibly hear from these walls and imagine it's nothing but continuous tales of people growing old and dying, interspersed with them mentioning a bloody takeover of the castle.

Someone always lives to tell the tale.

I swallow heavily and brush my torch against the walls. The flames don't waver. Nothing should be jumping out of any secret holes. As long as we're the survivors, I find that I don't really care what happens to the hypno-kingdom.

Diz stalks ahead of us, his glowing bow drawn and ready. There's an arrow already waiting to be fired, but somehow he manages to keep it perfectly still. Each time we come to a corner he jumps around, ready to fire, but each time there's nothing waiting for us but more darkness.

That's because the sounds of people dying are coming from somewhere else. Even as we creep through the darkness I can hear the screams of things fighting. I recognise some as normal pokemon attacks, but there are other sounds, deeper, stranger, more _unnatural_ things. Diz tells me it's the aerodactyl jumping to our defence, but something about their screams just settles with me as _wrong._

And underneath all those sounds, I can hear something else. A shuffling sound, slow and steady and reminiscent of the zombies in Eterna.

I shudder and take a step away instinctively. Kiki grunts as I nearly step on her, but otherwise she says nothing.

"_Gastly are not permitted down here,"_ Diz says like he's reading my mind - which he probably is. _"This is something else. This is - no!"_

It comes out in something like a whisper and a gasp. I turn the corner, torch bared before me and it only serves to illuminate the horror in front of me.

A gothitelle shambles along the corridor, its head at an unnatural angle. Its mouth is open, displacing rows of needle sharp teeth. It keeps one hand against the wall, using it for balance and the other holds the severed head of a hypno, with the spine still dangling from what remains of its neck.

"_Kill it!" _Diz screams as he fires an arrow at it. The gothitelle bounces away from the wall with speed it shouldn't have and utters a cackling laugh at us. _"Kill it before-!"_

All of a sudden tendrils of darkness erupt from inside the gothitelle's skirt. They latch onto the dead hypno's head and pull it into its body with a sickening _shlurp-plop_ head disappears completely as its skirt wraps itself around the hypno's skull and its eyes pop out and land perfectly in one of the folds of its skirt. Darkness washes over them like eyelids and suddenly, it's like the hypno was never there at all.

A massive lump appears in the gothitelle's throat. I'm as frozen in horror as everyone else as it hacks a horrible cough that sounds like it's dying. Its neck beings to fix itself and its head seems to swell up until finally it throws back its head, coughs and spits out something wet and slimy and white.

I stare at it for what feels like forever until I realise that I'm staring at a _skull_. The dead hypno's skull that it just ate, but without any sort of skin or flesh or _anything_ other than bone in it.

The gothitelle fixes us with a silent, evil smile.

Then all at once a hundred eyes open on its skirt and it _screams_ like nothing I've ever heard before.

Mandy leaps into action first, squawking and disappearing under a cloak of darkness. Diz hisses and his bow seems to _hum_ as he fires off arrow after arrow but the gothitelle just _weaves_ around each of them and lets them _thrum_ against the walls and the floor.

Needles fly through the darkness as Kiki attacks. The gothitelle shrieks as its eyes begin to burst and bleed. I see the floor get covered with thick, black ice as Cassie dances around in the darkness. The gothitelle hisses as it slides over the floor, its actual eyes shining pure white. Diz's bow suddenly loads with more arrows than I can even count and one by one they fire into the gothitelle and splatter its head and its body and even still it keeps coming, haunting some horrible death rattle that makes my spine want to crawl out of my body and run away!

I scream as it comes too close to me and swing at it with my torch. The fire does little to distract it. Instead all of its eyes seem to turn on me at once and I flinch as it bares its teeth in a horrible snarl.

Then Diz appears behind it, a glowing purple dagger in his hands. He plunges it deep into the gothitelle's neck, pulls it back out and makes thick, black blood fly everywhere. Mandy shrieks and appears in the gothitelle's face and pulls both its ears up and away from its head with a horrible ripping sound.

I only realise its dead when my pokémon stop attacking it and my hands stop trembling. Diz gives us a look to appraise us all and shakes his head as I go to say something. _"They always travel in pairs,"_ he warns me.

Just before there's a flash of light and a bisharp leaps out of the darkness. I scream and throw my torch at it. The fire catches on its front and its chest begins to cave in and melt as the flames catch. It screams horrible, _haunting_ sounds as it forgets all about attacking us and drops to the floor to put out the flames, but that doesn't do anything except make them spread further and faster.

"_Come on!"_ Diz cries as he takes my hand and drags me away from the burning thing. I'm vaguely aware of someone pressing the torch back into my hands but I have no idea how it got there and I can't say who even placed it there. All I can do is focus on the sounds of our footsteps as they echo around the corridors and hope that nothing decides to follow us.

Finally we reach a massive set of doors that Diz throws open. Inside a load of hypno-guards spin around at us, pointing glowing spears of all different colours in our direction. I recognise Mal Zin and Beel both behind the line of hypnos and see that they're both covered in black stains that have to be gothitelle blood.

"_Let them pass," _Beel says. The hypno-guards obey instantly and lower their spears. Mandy squawks at them and finds her place back on my shoulder. Cassie's still by my feet – somehow – and Kiki remains my ever-present protective shadow.

"_They had moles within our people,"_ Diz says without waiting. _"The Seer's door-guard was compromised."_

"_Yes_," Mal Zin says, pulling his mouth back and exposing all his brown, ugly teeth. _"There were many, it seems, that are unhappy with our choices in this war. We offered them a chance to leave peacefully, should our ideals conflict. It seems instead that they chose to serve as snakes."_

"_Their choices do not matter!"_ Beel smacks his staff down on the floor. Electricity flares out of it and charges straight into the ground. _"They will not emerge victorious – ours is a force they cannot defeat. Regardless, there remains the Seer."_ He turns to me and so does everyone else. I shuffle a little uncomfortably under all their scrutinising looks. _"You cannot stay here – it is much too dangerous. We must return you to the surface."_ He looks at Diz and nods. _"Teleport. We will make the arrangements."_

"Wait a second!" I cry as Beel turns away. "Why couldn't we just teleport here?" I turn to glare at Diz. "If you can teleport, why didn't we just warp here instead of having to run through all those corridors? I'm covered in blood and all sorts of gross things because of you!"

"_In the event of an attack, we erect a psychic shielding that prevents teleportation," _Mal Zin says. _"We train to rely on other methods. Any of our enemies that attempt to teleport within this barrier are simply . . . dispersed, for want of a better word. They do not end up where they wish to teleport to, if they emerge in one place alone."_

I can't help but shudder involuntarily.

I find my pokémon's poké balls without even thinking about it. One moment they're out with me, the next they're recalled into safety. Mal Zin nods at me. _"We will come to your aid, should you ever need it."_

"_May your enemies fall beneath your feet,"_ Beel adds.

I want to say something back to them, to thank them for everything they've done or just to tell them that they're not allowed to die. But I don't even get the chance before Diz grabs my shoulder and everything vanishes in a flash of blue.

**-O-O-O-**

I wake up with my mouth feeling indescribably dry. I smack my lips together and groan as the world beneath me seems to shake rhythmically.

"Are you alright?"

I groan at the mystery voice and try to bat it away. Too many pokémon talking to me lately. My brain just can't handle all the confusion.

"I think she's waking up. Hello? Little girl? Are you alright?"

I grunt and manage to open my eyes. Three people swim in front of me before they merge and become just two. There's a man in front of me in loose, blue nurses clothes. I try not to smile goofily at him – he looks like someone I'd see on tv. Behind him is a woman in the same sort of clothes with a concerned frown on her face.

"Where?" I try to say, but my throat is too dry. I cough and find a glass of water pressed into my hands. When I'm finished, it's taken from me before I even manage to open my eyes again. I find myself sitting in a bed, my clothes missing but my pokémon in their balls and on a tray above my lap. I glance around and see that I'm in a hospital – and a human one at that.

"Where am I?" I manage to ask.

The boy doctor smiles. "You're in Pewter. You arrived here last night without a word of warning – the doctors on A&E said that there was a flash of light and they found you in the waiting area, passed out. Do you remember anything of what happened before hand?"

I go to tell him about everything in the hypno kingdom before my mind catches up with me and I realise how silly that would sound. "I was training," I tell them, "and then I fell into this cave thing with loads of pokémon I didn't recognise. I was there for a while and my pokémon made friends with some of the wild pokémon there. I think one of them teleported me here."

_Where is Diz?_ I begin to wonder, but I remember the war and everything down there. He probably went back down to help everyone, I tell myself. I try my best not to sigh and instead just hope silently that he makes it out alive. He might be crazy, but I can't really imagine my life without the weird hypno now. At least the doctors haven't mentioned me being covered in blood. Hopefully I wasn't completely soaked in that when Diz dropped me off here, because otherwise all the creepy police are going to be after me again.

"Alright," the boy doctor says, even as the girl one takes down notes. "We rang your parents from your phone when you showed up. They're understandably concerned, but they said your brother should be here soon. They also said you were travelling together? Did something cause you to get separated?"

_Hypno_, I want to say. Instead I just swallow and nod slowly. "The caves, yeah. Jerry and I usually train separately, because I'm a girl and not cool enough for him, he says." I smile as the man smiles at me. "Not really though. It's just that he's stronger than me and when he's with me, people that are too strong for me to spar against come along. So it's easier for us to separate. But then I got distracted looking for some new pokémon and fell into that cave. I don't think it was Diglett's Cave, but it was somewhere near Lavender."

I've travelled across the entire country, I realise. Kinda screw up my plans for getting badges!

"All right," he says. "Your brother said he can be here in two days. Until then, we'd like to keep you here –"

"No!" I shout before I can stop myself. I don't like hospitals. They're where people go to die! And there's always bad policemen hanging about in the hospitals on the movies! "Can I stay in the pokémon centre instead? I'll let you guys know where I am and come back, but I really, _really_ don't like hospitals."

The woman sighs. "As a minor, we're not allowed to let you do such a thing. However, as a trainer with a badge and three pokémon, we're allowed to give you some freedom. You're allowed to check in at the nearest pokémon centre, but you're not allowed to leave town until a doctor gives you the all clear. In addition, you have to place an inhibitor on any of your pokémon capable of instantaneous long-distance travel."

"I don't have any of those," I say. "But okay. Can I get out of here now, please?"

They agree, but not without lecturing me for _ages_ and making me fill in forms and wear a watch that tracks my movements. Then they start telling me that if I break any of the conditions, they're going to ring my parents and tell them on me! Even worse – they want me to come back into the hospital at seven in the morning tomorrow! _Seven!_ Who even wants to be awake that early?

Just to make sure I'm not lying, they put me in a taxi and pay for it to take me to the pokémon centre. I sit there in silence on the way, thumbing my pokémon's poké balls. I checked them when I had a moment to make sure they were mine, but all of them were asleep. Nothing I did would wake them. I would have been worried, if one of the nurses hadn't told me that it was psychic-induced hypnosis sleep. _Diz_, I thought instantly.

I skip out of the taxi and make my way into the pokémon centre. Everything seems to be just boring, cold, grey stone. It almost reminds me of my room in the hypno kingdom. As I check in at the desk, the nurse there – who has _pink _hair and thus is pretty awesome – nods and phones the hospital to confirm that yes, I have checked in with them. She hands me a key to my room and takes my pokémon off me to check up on them.

I sigh as I make my way to my room. The hospital found my backpack with them and everything still inside. After having hypno around me constantly, it seems strange to be alone.

As I open the door to my room, I realise that in a strange way, I'll miss Diz and his stupid weirdness.

Then the moment I get into my room, I find him lying on my bed, his naked butt on top of my pillows.

"_Darling!"_ he says with a grin. _"You didn't think you'd be rid of me that easily, did you?"_


	15. You Already Know How This Will End

_Dear Diary,_

_Sometimes I am taken aback by simpler things. In all my travels, in all my searching for my answers, little things can still jump out at me. Is it wonder I feel, marveling at these sights? Or am I subconsciously trying to reconnect to these simpler, blissfully ignorant times? Do __**I**_ _want to go back to the time when I was unaware of this coming strife?_

_I saw a bird. It was pretty._

_The bird knows not what I fear is coming—fear. Do I fear it? Diary, that word fits me and yet it does not. I don't like my growing understanding of it._

_I envy its innocence._

* * *

><p><strong>Pokémon<strong>

**Transgression**

_By Cru_

* * *

><p><strong>|You Already Know How This Will End|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

"I'd like new pillows for my room," I tell the awesome pink-haired nurse at the desk. She arches an eyebrow. Those aren't pink, but a sort of really neutral brown, and the contrast makes her look... Okay, I'm still distracted by the really cool hair.

"New pillows...? Do you need new bedding? Did one of your pokémon make a mess?" she asks, first hesitant and then outright alarmed. Maybe it was her shift to do laundry or something, but I shake my head and she calms.

"Just pillows. Er, my hypno put his butt on everything." Actually, he made sure to roll around too for good measure, but my parents insist that a lot of people can be happier if they know less. Or something. Basically they just wanted me to talk less about private parts.

At least my pokémon don't flash others as a sort of attack.

She gives me another blanket anyway, and I resolve to make a fort with it. I'm not sharing a room until Jerry gets here, and maybe Cassie will like it. "You have a hypno?" she asks half-curiously.

"Kind of—" I realise my folly and hug my new bedding like it can become my shield. "He's my brother's, he's keeping an eye on me until he gets here."

"Alright..."

I'm not sure if she buys it or not but she doesn't throw me in prison. Instantaneous long-distance travel is what that woman called it, and teleportation must fall under that. Does Annie's move count as it? Maybe that's why Jerry is taking two more days. Why does Pewter hate fast travel?

Or is it Kanto?

Everything about this trip has been nuts. Losing Ali was one thing, and Lavender was even worse, but the hypno city now has me hyper aware of things like psychics and ghosts and drawing attention to myself.

"You're my brother's pokémon," I tell Diz as I walk in.

"_Darling, you couldn't pay me to fake that_," he replies. He's swinging some sort of charm in the air in front of Cassie, who is miraculously sitting still long enough to watch it. That alone catches me off guard—can pokémon get lured in by hypno, too?

"My brother's a strong trainer," I say protectively, a little late.

"_Good thing we won't be around long enough for this to matter_."

"What do you mean?" I shoo him away from the contaminated pillows and start fluffing up my (new) side of the bed.

"_Why Darling, I'm surprised at you_," Diz coos, rolling over and setting his chin in his hands. He grins and I purse my lips in response. "_I thought an elite trainer such as yourself would be more excited to be so close to Mount Moon_."

"I'm more excited about the history museum," I tell him bluntly. It won't be as good as Lenora's museum, but there are Kanto bits of history to absorb, too!

"_If we're going to be staying in town for the afternoon, then I'd like to do some shopping_." With a long-suffering sigh, he flops back down onto the pillows. Without moving, he wraps part of his jacket in bright blue psychic-ness and lifts it for me to see. "_Look at the state of my poor, poor coat. I simply must obtain another while I'm topside, Darling, I must!_"

...Shopping? Jerry doesn't really like shopping, especially after what happened last time. Maybe my museum trip can be adjusted... Or it could wait! Then when Jerry shows up late, I'll drag _him_ around it. Maybe he'll learn a thing or two.

Jerry coming here and then Diz being here could raise a couple problems, but they're easy enough to ignore. I'll let the _adult_ trainer and the _adult_ psychic figure it out.

"_Use more sarcasm, Darling, I don't think the hypno back home could hear your thoughts_," Diz says dryly, then chuckles.

I still don't get how I can just broadcast my thoughts half as loudly as he seems to think, but I try using more sarcasm anyway. He snorts. I win! "We can go shopping," I tell him regally, proud of my decision-making skills, "but I'm not paying for anything for you."

He appears before the door in a flash of blue light. "_Please, I've managed my years prior to a shopping trip with the Seer, and I'll manage this one just as well._"

"Wait!"

He turns and arches a brow, hand on the door handle.

"There are laws, pokémon have to be covered. Just like humans."

"_Human law, of course. Because all should obey the prudishness of humans_," Diz says with an amount of sarcasm that put my thoughts to shame.

"You're the one who wants to go out shopping where the people are. Pants."

"_I don't wear pants_," he says flatly.

"Cover yourself somehow," I retort with a vague sort of gesture. "Wear a skirt then!"

And that's how I find myself in the middle of Pewter's largest shopping mall with a hypno in a leather miniskirt.

I did try to get Kiki or Mandy to bully him into wearing something better, but they were still groggy at the time. Cassie was no help at all. Even after he had stopped swinging that charm she had sat there and stared at the wall. Maybe she had been groggy too? It was hard to understand her sometimes. Or all of the time.

Diz is swinging a hot pink feather boa over his shoulder, turning this way and that in the mirror, and my eyes hurt from the bright colors. Mercifully, as much as he sighs and huffs and laments, it seems as if he really _is_ out to get a new jacket. Boas aren't jackets. (It only takes a couple reminders of that to get him moving.)

"_How hard is it to find something fashionable with a ruff? Here, Darling, try this on_," he says absently and pushes a mint green sundress into my hands. I make a face and drop it.

"I'm not wearing this."

"_If I'm going to be guarding you, I want you to look less like a crime of fashion and more like... about anything else_." He picks it back up and tries to shove it at me again. I only hold it long enough to put it back on the rack. "_Are you aware of how shopping trips work?_"

"Yes," I reply stubbornly.

"_That means you try to act cute as well. Come now, Darling, you could even swing the cute angle if you applied yourself_."

"I'm not cute! I'm trying to become a big bad trainer so I can win all my badges and then I'll become a student! Not a model, or a cute—anything."

"_I wonder why they're mutually exclusive in your mind_," he muses, a little too loudly in my head.

I sulkily wander off to another part of the store. Jerry rarely lets me go around to what I want to look at, only if we need it.

I shake my head to get the mental image of my brother stabbing someone out of it.

Diz makes a sort of _hmm_ sound in my mind, and I belatedly realise that he doesn't have to be right next to me to keep an eye on me. Ugh, what if Jerry had that power? Or my parents? Dad's kadabra totally doesn't count.

We end up leaving the first store with bags. Diz, sure enough, produces money from _somewhere_ and he even offers to pay for mine. I'm not sure if he's trying to be a gentleman or just show off, but I let him. Because free stuff! The second store likewise produces more things for me to carry—how could I resist a purple jacket with purrloin ears on the hood?— and the third one _finally_ gives Diz a jacket he likes. Apparently, more than the four others he picks up. It's another soft leather one, but a rich dark brown, with a fur-lined high collar for him. He swaps it out immediately and rubs his cheek against it.

I'm starting to wonder if he has a thing for leather.

And _that_ mental image is enough to make Diz look at me sharply.

"_If you can't appreciate the simpler things in life, Darling, there's not much I can do for you_," he says with a happy, dreamy sort of sigh.

I roll my eyes at him. "My arms are getting tired."

"_You are a shopping novice._"

"I want to go train my pokémon." Shopping without Jerry was nice, but training would be even better. Especially because I know he won't let me anywhere near Mount Moon once he arrives. (Actually, he had already mentioned it several times over the phone.)

"_The badges aren't necessary in the long run_."

"I _want_ them and I _need_ them to get into my school!" I stomp my foot for good measure. "And I could catch another pokémon in there. Aren't onix found there?"

He only _hmm_s again and after one last store, agrees to go back. Or he gives in to my whining. I can be a _very_ good whiner when it suits my needs. And only then, it's not like I whine any other time.

"I wish I had a pokémon I could dress up."

"_So you want an onix?_" Diz asks with clear amusement. For someone who bums around in my head so often, he doesn't seem to be able to understand me very well.

"I want an onix so it'll evolve into a steelix and I'll get all the badges easy. And so people will fear me. I want a pokémon to dress up because Kiki punches holes in everything, Mandy claws at most things, and Cassie..." Maybe I could dress up Cassie? It would freeze, whatever it is. "Duh," I add. Dressing up Cassie is a bad idea. So a new pokémon is necessary.

We've burned up quite a bit of daylight with the shopping, but a short trip to Mount Moon wouldn't be bad, would it? Except I've totally underestimated how far it is from the actual city. And that's _after_ getting lucky and having the pokémon center on the closer side of town! The sun is hidden by some of the lower mountains by the time we get to the opening. Or one of the openings. 'MOUNT MOON 4' is carved into the rock overhanging the entrance.

"Did you know it was such a far walk?" I ask Diz. He works wonderfully well as a bodyguard since no wild pokémon approached us on the way. Or maybe it was because this was such a popular route?

"_Darling, please. If I had, do you think I would have worn my new Uggs_?"

I release Mandy first. She takes in the growing twilight and flaps excitedly around, her squawks coming in half-translated bursts. Diz holds a hand to his temple like he's got a headache.

"_I can translate her speech if she would just slow down_," he grinds out. Mandy laughs and perches on my head.

And talks faster than ever.

Kiki is less thrilled with the time of day. She pricks me with her arms, trying to tug me back, but we're already _here_! "Let's just duck in. It's not as large as other places and I want to see what it's like." Brushing off a cactus is actually pretty difficult though. Mandy manages to separate us and tears half my sleeve off in the process. Good thing I have more shirts now.

"_Going into a dark place when it's only going to darken further is a terrible idea_," Kiki tells me sourly, and it's like her voice is trying to come through static or water or snow or something. It's distant and soft around the edges.

Diz pinches the bridge of his massive nose. "_We're already here and it will be dark inside no matter the time outside. Let's keep the chatter to a minimum, shall we?_" I think we're actually giving him a headache.

Cassie bursts into song and he doesn't even bother trying to translate it for me. Mandy bursts into another round of raucous laughter, adding to the din. "We've probably scared off all of the good pokémon. Let's keep quiet." Definitely not for Diz's sake. I wonder if there are purrloin in here? Highly unlikely, but stranger things have happened to me.

Mandy flaps into the dark cavern without needing further encouragement. Kiki sticks close to me, grumbling all the while, and weirdly, Cassie stays nearby, too. Diz acts as a torch while I pull mine out. There are softly glowing stones dotting the walls and ground, not enough to see by, but at least we won't walk into any walls. Kind of makes it eerie, though.

We're not even out of sight of the opening when my flashlight dies. Kiki pricks me and my curse dies on my tongue, though I shoot her a glare in the dark that she probably can't see. Why could a cactus from the desert see in the dark? Mandy laughs anyway and that starts Cassie laughing. I really don't need creepy laughter echoing around me right now!

I open my mouth to snap at them, but another voice cuts across mine. "Hello, friend. You seem to be having some light troubles there."

I scream and Mandy shrieks and Cassie keeps laughing. Blue light flares in front of Diz, casting our newcomer in sharp contrast against the blackness. It's a boy, or a teenager, but probably not as old as Jerry, and he has really dark hair and a cat mask on. It's not quite a purrloin or a meowth, but a sort of mixture of the two.

He chuckles and I jump again when I see a politoed with him. Kiki hisses at it, raising her arms. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Well, you did," I huff back and cross my arms.

"_To say the least_," Diz adds and I hope that's only to me.

"Sorry," the boy with the mask says, sounding nothing of the sort. Jerk. "I sell things, sources of light among them. If your light has truly gone out, I would be more than happy to replace it for you."

"...You sell things? In the middle of Mount Moon?" This guy is suspicious, but he only has one pokémon and I have three. Or four. I'm pretty sure Diz would fight for me again if this guy was really dangerous, at least. Although he comes off more as creepy than dangerous. Who can call a kid in an oversized sweater dangerous? Unless that's just a ruse! "I don't need your light!" I blurt out before he can answer me.

"It's not as dark as other places, but it's still quite dark. None but your vullaby would be able to see. Unless your hypno will remain pleased to act as a torch for your visit."

"_No_," Diz deadpans. "_That said, Darling, I'm not sure I like him. Something doesn't seem quite right._"

I look at the hypno, coat and boots and skirt and all. Aside from his colouration and his long nose, he can almost pass for a weird person. I return my gaze to the boy before me. He's wearing baggy clothes and has a _mask_! But if Diz thinks there's something wrong about him, maybe he could be a pokémon...

"I'm only here to assist." He pulls his backpack off and set it down, but it drops as if it weighs twenty tonnes! I shy back a bit. He rummages around and then pulls out an old-fashioned lantern. I can hear the oil sloshing around in it. "This is my cheapest item that would produce light for you, friend."

"I don't have any matches."

"I can sell you those," he says with another creepy chuckle.

"_We should just return to the city_," Kiki says darkly. Cassie already has the old lantern in her little paws, though, swinging the unlit thing to and fro.

"_We have to go to the inner sanctum!Let's go, let's go!_" she sings and patters off into the darkness with it.

"Looks like I have a happy customer."

"Cassie! Get back here!"

"I do need to see your payment, however." He catches me by the sleeve when I try to chase after my snorunt. Mandy, in a shocking display of helpfulness, flaps after her in my stead.

"I'm not buying it, my pokémon just took it on her own!"

"That's theft unless it's paid for."

His grip on my sleeve is scary strong. He might actually be a pokémon, and if he is, he has to be a psychic or something to be able to talk to me. Diz hasn't said anything further, but do I really want to make another strong pokémon my enemy?

"_Fine_," I spit and shove a wad of money at him.

The masked boy happily accepts it without counting. "I also have many other fine wares if you'd like."

"Like what?" Who knows who far Cassie and Mandy have gone by now? My patience is wearing thin—and okay, maybe he's starting to scare me a little (just a little!)—but he hasn't released my sleeve. I don't want to lose both in one day.

"Bats."

"_Why_ would I need a bat?!"

"To protect yourself?"

"I don't need anything else!" Diz detaches his hand from my shirt—about time—and I chase after my pokémon. Kiki waddles behind me after undoubtedly shooting more glares and maybe needles at the masked salesman. I can dimly hear clanging up ahead, but Diz's light isn't really helping and the glowing rocks are keeping me from going super night vision.

I hear Mandy squawk and manage to find them both. Cassie is trying to shove normal rocks into the lantern and she's already managed to break the glass on it. So now I have a stupid broken lantern.

"_May as well use it. Don't look a gift ponyta in the mouth, Darling_," Diz tells me and I scowl as he lights the wick with some sort of psychic move. It flickers as it melts off all of the frost Cassie had put on it, but at least we have light. "_It's better than me advertising my presence to everything in the cave._"

"You're stronger than everything in the cave." Psychics are strong, and they only would have given me the best to guard me, right? Plus my pokémon are totally strong. Some zubat and a strange maybe-human salesman will be no match!

"_Are we going to train now or are we going to race around in the dark?_" Mandy asks me and perches on my shoulder.

"I want another pokémon. Let's find something in here."

As it turns out, there are shockingly few zubat in here. A couple of golbat, but still not many bats around. There are far more paras and parasect, and they are incredibly annoying because they want to pollinate with Kiki or something. It makes Diz laugh and Kiki starts carrying out some sort of revenge scheme against them. It's fine enough with the paras, but the parasect are much bigger and try to eat Cassie more than once. They make Diz nervous, too.

"Let's just stay away from the bugs."

"_Agreed_."

A far better find in the darkness are the clefairy. I almost think we're back in the hypno city when I see one walk by carrying a glowy rock. They look just like a smaller, less intimidating Beel, except also a lot cuter. But they evolve into clefable, and I saw firsthand how awesome they could be. Perfect!

"Corner a clefairy for me!"

Mandy pelts after one with no further questions. Kiki gives me a look of pure disdain before shuffling off, and Cassie continues collecting glowing stones. "_You want a clefairy? Are you sure, Darling?_" Diz asks skeptically.

"Yes," I reply over the sound of their screams of panic in the background. I can't see what's going on outside of my lantern light, but every so often a scattered group will come running across. One slips on a patch of ice left behind by Cassie, and I try getting her to attack it, but it runs off before she even seems aware I've spoken.

Mandy's chaos is a constant in the background. I wander through the area, keeping her in earshot, and come across Kiki trying to seed a clefairy while simultaneously kicking off a friendly paras. It's not working so well and I try to capture the clefairy, but it breaks out of the pokeball without a pause. I go through two more pokeballs before deciding that we need to switch tactics.

And by that I mean Diz brings over a clefable. "_What do you think you're doing?_" it asks with a voice so high it's hard to tell if it's supposed to be a boy or a girl. It just sounds... squeaky.

I briefly wonder if I can catch it.

"I'm trying to catch a clefairy," I say, heedless to Diz frantically shaking his head just behind the pink pokémon.

"_You're not going to touch a single citizen of mine without the lord's permission! We are a sacred colony of Those From The Stars and you will not infringe upon our rights!_"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I reply honestly.

"_Darling_," Diz interrupts urgently, and from the clefable's expression I think he's talking only to me, "_you really ought not to insult clefable leaders. Beel is with the hypno because of circumstances, but most of them lead clans of clefairy like this. And you're trying to take away one of hers. Do try to be a bit more polite and try not to get killed, please?_"

"But—weren't the theories of clefairy coming from the stars disproved?"

The clefable goes red in the face.

I have the feeling that that was a stupid thing to say.

Diz steps in and must say something, because most of the tension drains out of the clefable. Before I can feel relieved, though, it pulls me away from Cassie and starts me marching. "_Our lord would have words with you, if you are indeed so terribly ignorant to everything_."

I shoot Diz a look over my shoulder. He shrugs. "_I told her that you know nothing but that you're not only willing to learn, but that your mother is a specialized trainer of psychics including myself and more than one lunatone. It was the only thing I could think of without potentially making the situation worse._"

At least it's easily pleased. Cassie skates along behind us on her own ice path, but I don't see Kiki anywhere. I don't want to risk calling out to her. Did Diz alert her? Did she hear me? Mandy's still off terrorizing more clefairy—why isn't the clefable mad at _her_? _I_ was only trying to talk about history!

It leads us through the darkness of the cave, occasionally squeaking at passing clefairy or picking up glowing stones. Soon, its arms are full of them, almost enough for it to cast its own shadow. I don't even understand why they're collecting them. Aren't clefairy and clefable supposed to be drawn toward moon stones? They're getting more numerous the further in we go, and I risk a look back to see that not only Cassie, but Kiki is there, following along at a distance. They're hardly more than silhouettes, but at least I can see them.

I'd hate to be alone without them. And then, immediately following that thought, I'm glad that there aren't any ghosts here. Sure, the first parasect we saw nearly gave me a heart attack, but they're not so bad once I got used to the dead eyes and drooling. Ghosts are ten million times worse.

I wonder where Mandy is, though. I can't hear her anymore, and even if she was close by, she's so dark that it'd be nearly impossible to see. I just hope she didn't get left behind.

The stones are outnumbering the actual rock of the place now, and I drop my lantern to my side. I don't need it for light, and that's kinda creepy. Since the glowing stones are beneath us as well as above and all around, there's no sense of real shadow or depth. It's almost like we're underwater. Why didn't I try to get a water pokémon instead? There were cute ones, and awesome ones, and then I could go diving with them!

Diz clears his throat and I snap back to attention, barely stopping in time to not run into the back of the clefable. "_Lord, we are here for you to educate and investigate a human who wishes to join with our clan and take a piece of our Star_."

We've stopped in a large cavern part, with a high ceiling and absolutely all of it is lined with glowing blue rocks! It's like we're inside a giant bubble. The air is dead calm and smells strangely of burnt things and sweet licorice. I step around the clefable to look at it all, marveling at the size of it. I initially don't notice Diz slowly stepping back or the way Cassie's stopped singing.

There's a mound of larger and larger glowy rocks in the middle, and there's a pokémon on top of it. I think it's red and blue, or maybe green, but the distance and hazy glow of everything messes with my eyes. Kiki hisses behind me. "_We should go._"

"_The Fallen Star has fallen_," Cassie says sadly.

The clefable leads me up to the pile and Diz lets out a strangled sound. "_Darling—we should really get going. Now._"

"_You_ were the one telling me to be polite," I reply, though I try to pull away from the pink pokémon anyway. It's like that boy from before, way too strong for its size and... pinkness. The cloying smell gets stronger the closer we get, and then I finally understand.

The pokémon on top of the pile of rocks looks like little more than a heap of decayed and decaying wires, green and blue and red, except it's almost formed like limbs and a torso—and I can see its head lolling to one side, eye sockets empty and dark. Bits of it have fallen off, or rotted off, and litter the stones around it like confetti. It's dead.

And I have the really bad feeling that this isn't a normal dead pokémon.

"_We should go!_" Diz flashes up next to us with a burst of light, momentarily throwing the dead thing into brighter focus, and then grabs me away from the clefable.

"Where's Mandy?" I'm already returning Kiki, who's struggling up the rock pile to join us, and Cassie is quietly crying on the far side of the room, freezing over all of the rocks nearby. I run over to her to get close enough to return her too, and Diz is busy arguing with the clefable.

"_She must seek counsel with our lord!_"

"_Your lord of stars is dead and you are depraved for following it!_"

"_All will learn the truth of the dead stars—_" He stops translating it for me and it finishes with a garble of snarls.

"Mandy! Diz, we have to get Mandy!" Clefairy are lining up around the mouth of the cave, mostly curious and frightened, but a couple of the larger ones look angry. Diz can catch up; I need to find my vullaby and we all need to get out of here before they're _all_ looking angry!

All at once, the glowing rocks go out.

My lantern becomes the only source of light, and I can just barely see pink forms at the edges. They're chasing me! I shove Kiki's pokeball into my pocket so I can shift my lantern out into the front, lighting the way as I run. The clefairy are making noises now, one shrill sort of wailing, and I feel like I've been dropped back into Eterna or something. There's a flash of bright blue behind me, but I don't hear Diz in my mind. Was I wrong to leave him?

But I still have to find my bird! "Mandy! _Mandy_!" I scream and it echoes around me, unlike the keening of the clefairy. I think I hear her squawk, distantly, but I can't be sure.

Another flare of blue appears beside me, and next thing I know, Diz has picked me up. He has his bow out but not an arrow, more keen on running than fighting. "_I hadn't thought there'd be something here, too. You really do attract this sort of thing, don't you?_"

"I didn't attract it!" I snap back. "Have you seen Mandy?"

"_No, but she's not behind us, so she must be ahead of us. Keep running!_"

"Why can't you teleport me this time?!"

Diz laughsharshly. "_I wasn't aware you wanted to leave the bird behind, Darling!_"

We turn a corner and narrowly avoid something pinkish with claws. I scream, duck under it, and keep going. Diz notches purple arrows and fires into it, making the thing roar and shake the entire cave! I can hear rocks falling from the ceiling around us.

Or me. I keep running. Diz isn't next to me anymore, though I can still see him and his purple bow if I glance back. "Mandy! Mandy, get over here right this minute!"

This time, I definitely hear her squawk. I nearly falter, looking around wildly, but I can't see anything outside of the stupid broken lantern light, and that makes everything flicker and dance. The clefairy are still shrieking behind me. ...Or are they _singing_? There's something scarily harmonic about it.

"Mandy! Mandy, I need—_oof_!" A black feathered thing collides with my face and I hug her without even caring that her claws are jabbing into my neck. We tumble to the ground and she sheds more than a few feathers, but she otherwise looks okay. "Mandy! There you are, you stupid bird! We have to get out of here now! _Diz_!"

But what comes and gets us is not a hypno.

Mandy shrieks and pelts at the new pokémon, but I have no idea what it is or where it came from. It came in a flash of white light, a teleport, but it's only partially white and has green hair and red and has a long skirt that's also kind of red. It giggles softly, raising a thin arm, and throws Mandy across the cavern. I tear after her in the darkness, away from the new thing.

I've been running on rock so long, I notice immediately when my shoe connects with a _clang_ instead of a _thud_.

I slow, confused. The rock is getting patchy and randomly placed, but otherwise it looks shiny beneath me. Metallic. I crouch down, holding my lantern down to it, but Mandy reappears before I can investigate. She squawks madly, tearing at my hair. I'm further confused until I hear a _whoosh_ behind us. Turning, I see the thin thing in the skirt gliding over towards us, smiling wickedly.

We keep running. I shout for Diz, but he never comes. The rocks get more and more rare until we're in some sort of hallway, narrow and confining, and _still_ that thing comes after us!

When we reach a dead end, I realise that it has been herding us.

Mandy leaps off my shoulder and flies small circles around my head, kicking off of the walls and low ceiling. I turn and face the psychic pokémon. Has it killed Diz? No, he wouldn't go down so easily. But I have all three of my pokémon here, and we've taken down strong things before. Nevermind the not-gengar and dead legendaries and hypno city, we can do other cool things together.

Mandy suddenly tackles me and I stumble into the metal wall—which, with a groan, falls open into a hidden door. She caws out a laugh, triumphant, and pulls me back to my feet. The thing behind us screams in anger. That was a great incentive to keep going, away from it!

As long as we're moving, I don't want to release Kiki or Cassie. I have their pokeballs in my hand, though, minimized so I can keep the lantern in my other one. Its flickering little light doesn't help much, but with all the shiny metal reflecting, at least there's something.

Mandy leads me down another corner, takes a right turn at a fork, and then suddenly we're at another large door. It's a push one that looks like an exit in a movie theater. I'm too panicked to care why it's there.

But it doesn't lead outside, or even back into the cavern. Only into a little room, full of monitors. My attention is immediately caught by the one up in the corner, of Diz fighting off a horde of clefairy. It doesn't look like he's winning. Next to it, however, I see the white thing floating down the hallway I just came from. I whirl around and look for something to lock the door with, but the room is empty aside from the screens and a chair. "Mandy, help me push this chair over—!"

"Excuse you, I'm using this."

I jump back in fright at a giant _thing_ sitting in the chair. Mandy, still perched on the back, only cocks her head to one side. "Wh-What are you?!"

The pokémon is largely red with a cream sort of underbelly, but a golden star on its snout. What is far more menacing are the two ginormous claws it has, a little joystick in one of them. "I'm just making sure everything goes smoothly. I have an outline to adhere to, you know."

Two of the screens flicker and change to other scenes. I'm amazed when I realise that one of them is Ali, training with her heracross. She's okay! I mean, she _should_ be, she has an entire dojo full of super strong fighters looking out for her, but it's still reassuring. I start looking at the other screens, taking in all of the information. I don't notice the white thing slip into the room behind me.

Diz's battle has switched to another screen, and the clefable takes up another. It seems to be petting the remains of the dead legendary. The hallway I'd just come from is now empty and dark. Another screen is full of a forest, but part of it is burning. Another is of Lavender Town, and then what looks to be Pewter. They all flicker and switch, and now Jerry's on one! He's on a train, staring out the window with a distant sort of expression that makes me feel bad for accidentally leaving him.

"What _are_ all these?"

"Different scenes," the red pokémon replies. "Even if they aren't present all the time, I have to keep an eye on everything. Make sure things are going exactly as planned. It's hard enough updating once a month without having everyone fighting tooth and nail against me."

"How can you...?" The monitors all flicker to another set of scenes. People and pokémon I don't recognize, what I think is Nacrene, a small green fairy-looking pokémon with large blue eyes, and then a brown-haired teenager with a shotgun and a sableye. There's so many of them, and they change more frequently than I can keep up with.

I turn back to it, and then find that Mandy has perched herself on its head, to its annoyance. But its claws aren't long enough to reach her. That's probably a good thing. "You're not supposed to be here for another four days, you know. Much less stumbling upon dead deoxys all willy-nilly."

Thin but strong arms wrap themselves around me and my lantern clatters to the floor. I drop my pokeballs, too, but they're enveloped in a psychic shine before they hit the ground. The white thing leans down and giggles into my ear, and its breath smells like its been eating dead things.

"If I shift Jerry's arrival back and then have you go to Viridian Forest... No, you have to go here..." I don't know how such a big claw can work such a little joystick, but it seems to be managing. Mandy makes no move to attack the white thing holding me, but she does have a sharp gaze on it. That's worrying.

The screens shift again and now the clefairy all lay mostly defeated, and Diz is gone. I start to hope that he might be able to come find me after all. The burning forest in the other corner is now covered in snow, still smoking, and—oh gods, it's that guy with the icky green beedrill! The lobster pokémon shifts the joystick with a click and the screens change once more. I recognize Pewter's museum amongst the new ones.

A static-y screech cuts across its mumbling. One of the screens has gone to static, but now there's audio. "Cru, I have _orange_ ears, okay?!"

The cru sighs. "I know I should have installed a mute button."

"Since you're off having such fun, I just wanted to let you know that I dropped off your favorite abomasnow into Viridian Forest. Don't call me pink next time."

"I—what?" It leans forward, displacing Mandy, and she flutters back down to the arm of the chair. She's really close to the floating pokeballs, and we exchange a glance. At least, I hope we do, because the swearing thing is busy smashing buttons and glaring at the smoking forest with the blizzard and we probably won't get another chance like this.

Mandy hits the pokeballs with her wing, just as the door behind us blows open. The thing falls out of its chair, the white thing and I are thrown to the ground, and a _very_ angry Diz is standing in the doorway. I think I'm saved, until he looks at the red pokémon trying to right its chair and lowers his bow.

"No, shoot it! Shoot all of them!" I shout, scrambling away from the white thing, which he does mercifully shoot. But it just rises back up like a zombie. I press myself against the far wall, all three of my pokémon out and in front of me. I wish Cassie wasn't freezing my boot to the floor, but I don't want to make any sudden moves. There are too many crazy people and things here.

"_Darling, why are you playing with a crawdaunt and a gardevoir?_" Diz asks, stoically ignoring the wall of monitors.

"I'm not a crawdaunt!" the red pokémon tells him, still trying to fix its chair. "I'm a cru-daunt."

Diz pinches the bridge of his long nose. "_Let me amend myself: Darling, why are you playing with even higher forces that you shouldn't be?_"

"I was chased in here! And _why_ are you just standing there talking about it! We still have a billion clefairy to fight through and then this thing is a psychic and I'm pretty sure it's one of the bad ones!" I maintain, half stubbornly, half out of fright. Why can't we just fight our way out, leaving a trail of blood, and then I pick up an onix on the way out?

"_She's not bad, she's a pretty, pretty princess!_" Cassie cheers, throwing her arms into the air.

"Yes she is," the cru-daunt says happily, rubbing its claw along the gardevoir's leg.

"She looks icky and her dress looks even worse. Did she make it herself?" I sneer.

"_Yes_," Diz groans. "_Let's get out of here before you find out how._"

"...That's it? We're just going to go?" I'm taken aback by how casual he's making this sound. But if he's really not that worried about these things, why not just kill them? They attacked me!

"Well, I have to fix a blizzard. And _you_ have to jump back into your schedule."

"_What schedule_?" Kiki asks with a roll of her eyes. "_You have already delayed our travels before with your mockery of a schedule, so why bother pretending you have one now?_"

"_Because it's a happy day!_" Cassie replies with a gleeful giggle.

"_Come on, Darling, let's go back to the canon before this gets any worse. I swear, you're going to give me wrinkles yet._"

"_No canon! All funny, let's start a war!_"

"Can someone start talking sense? I'm used to Cassie, but the rest of you—!" I break in, irritated. I'm used to adults not giving me answers because I was a kid, but pokémon usually don't act like that. Okay, Diz does sometimes, but it doesn't mean I'm happy about it!

"Who wants to start making sense _now_?" the cru-daunt asks dryly, turning back to its monitors. "Cherie, would you be a dear and take care of them again for me? The celebi are acting up again, too."

"_Again_?" Kiki asks, aghast.

"_Oh no_," Diz says with similar fright.

I'm mostly confused. "_Again and again until he gets it right_," Cassie says solemnly as the gardevoir closes in on us.

**-O-O-O-**

I walk into my room and find the hypno lying butt naked on my pillows. He sees me and grins widely. "_Darling! You didn't think you'd get rid of me that easily, did you?_"

I'm going to need new pillows.

Cassie looks up from where she's staring at his swinging charm, and then breaks into an even bigger grin than his. "_Again and again and around goes the clock 'till we all come around again._"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

I take no blame for this. All I did was edit it. For this chapter, you have the deer-obsessed, Thane fangirl that is Digital Skitty, of numel and stalker ghosts and copious ho-yay fame. For your latest chapter of actual Cru-writings, go over to her latest chapter.

(Also, she's to blame for this being sent to me _after_ April Fool's day.)

And now we shall return to our normal lack of an update schedule.


	16. With the Best Intentions

_Dear Diary,_

_Why must they insist on continuously tormenting me? Will I ever be left alone?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|With the Best Intentions|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

Suffice it to say, I don't think that the nurse is exactly thrilled when I appear downstairs five minutes later demanding new bedding for my room, though I think it might stem from the fact that my reasons are that I've had a hypno's hairy backside rubbing all over my pillows.

The fact that I happen to know that hypno have slightly hairy butts is also something that I am never, _ever_ going to be able to get out of my head, no matter how much I try.

In the two days that I have to wait for Jerry – he says it's because Annie's recovering from a bad injury and can't do instant long distance travel for a while, and he's too poor to afford to pay for it – I busy myself with simply little things like touring around Pewter and pretty much become a resident at the museum when I'm not at the hospital having to go in for tests to prove to them that I haven't taken a knock on the head and suddenly started thinking that I'm a gloom.

I also manage to go shopping with Diz and discover that he has the strangest thing for leather. It's slightly worrying. But I get myself a purple hoodie with purloin ears on the hood! It's pretty awesome, though I can't help but feel like I've done everything like this before, down to the shopping trip, the hoodie and Diz strutting into the girls' changing rooms like he owns the place.

At least they made him put on something to cover up his man-bits. Granted it's a leather miniskirt and now I'll forever be known as the girl followed around by the _fabulous_ hypno in hooker clothes.

I speak to Ali on the phone and she points out that if I'm simply doing tests to get my gym badges, my pokémon might not be as strong as other people's. So with that in mind, I make my way to the gym and manage to get really lucky and book a gym battle for the same day. The look on Jerry's face when he sees that I have _two_ badges will be something - if he even believes it.

I hum a little to myself as I scratch a big cross on a nearby tree and have Cassie aim for it. Her first shot goes wide and knocks a pidgey from the sky. I'm fairly certain that if it wasn't dead before it hit the ground, the _crunch_ it made when it hits and the tiny pieces of frozen feathers that scatter everywhere means it has to be.

Cassie chortles happily as she skips off after her food. "Hey!" I shout after her, but it's no use. I think her brains are made of jelly or something. They're all wobbly and like nothing else nature has ever been able to create.

I have no choice but to give up training her for now. She'll come back in time, possibly after she's finished eating pidgey-cicles. In the meantime at least my other pokémon are training. Kiki's busy slapping a tree with all her needles slowly leaking poison, but she's also stolen my phone and is somehow having Ali teach her how to throw punches that suck the life out of her enemies or something. I have no idea how Ali's even managing to do such a thing, but she says it's because all the monks she's training with have magic powers. If Kiki somehow becomes a vampire, I can believe it.

I sit down on a rocky ledge and let my legs dangle over the side. A passing geodude grumbles up at me and then continues on its way. I can see Mandy from here as she circles around in the sky, and every so often she catches the sun and it seems like there's two or three of her waiting above. I shake my eyes, thinking it's just the sunlight stuck in them, but she still seems to have split into a twin. I squeeze my eyes shut and decide instead to rummage through my pokédex for a little while. If nothing else, I might be able to find out something about a pokémon I could catch here. I want an arbok. Any snake that seems big enough to eat an entire family whole and still have room for dessert is totally something I want to control.

There's a flash of light as Diz appears by my side. His latest leather jacket is already covered in dust and mud. At least he's not wearing the miniskirt anymore – instead it's a pair of shorts that look like they're older than me.

"_I swear on the name of every deity that if another person approaches me and tells me about how comfy and easy to wear shorts are, I will murder them painfully and publically." _

"Yeah," I say, scrunching my nose a little, "apparently the people round here are weird like that. My parents said it's because of the radiation from all the moon stones."

"_Mutation or not, they held me down and forced these upon me! Look at them! They're . . . ghastly!"_

I shrug and continue flicking through my pokédex, though Diz's words prompt me into checking to make sure there's no steelix or gastly hiding in Mount Moon, waiting to try and eat me. I think of them both and remember Candice and her strange, always-flapping cape. I remember the ancient papers I found in the Snowpoint Temple and flick through my pokédex, hoping to find something that looks similar to the letters they contain. Predictably, I find nothing, though I feel a strong sense of discomfort afterwards. It's not quite a headache, but it's like I'm dizzy even though the world's not spinning around me and there's an itch inside my brain that I can't manage to find and scratch.

I glance at Diz and suddenly the feeling seems to creep away slowly. His eyes aren't glowing, but something about the way he's so purposefully staring off into the distance unsettles me. I decide that maybe I should start having Mandy hang out on my shoulders more often, or at least somehow get a hat made out of zoroark fur. Or a snood. What is a snood anyway? It's such a weird word.

Diz looks at me sharply, raising an eyebrow. I just smile as innocently as I can at him. If he wants to try and poke around in _my_ brain, then I'm just going to let my thoughts be as crazy as possible! That or I'll just sit here and imagine him in a tutu and doing the can-can.

"_I can make that thought a reality, should you wish?"_

"No thanks," I say quickly. "I don't want to be stuck in nightmares when I'm awake." I play with my pokédex a little more and see the two badges there under my name. It makes me grin shamelessly. Sure only one of them is the one I need, but I've still got a whole two badges – and a month sooner than Jerry managed it too! I pull up the map on it and start to try and plan where I need to go next; Cinnabar or back to Lavender. Either way I'll have to go through dark, damp tunnels or a forest that has so many trees the ground is always dark and hiding bugs with blades for arms.

Ideally Jerry can just have Annie sneak me straight to Cerulean or Viridian. If I go to Cerulean, I can beat up the gym leader there with Kiki and get another badge; just so that I can show the gym leaders that I'm not totally weak and defenceless. But if I do, it means that I'll have to be in Kanto for a bit longer. I've got no chance of starting my school this year, but I'd like to have all eight of the badges I need by next September instead.

"_Darling,"_ Diz whispers into my mind, _"as admirable as the pursuit of knowledge – that of the societies past even more so – is, do you not think you should spend your time doing something . . . else?"_

"No," I say flatly. "Beel told me that I should just live my life how I want to, and that no matter what I do, there's no chance of me actually stopping anything." I cross my arms smugly and grin up at Diz. The sunlight shines behind him and obscures his face from my vision. "So I don't see why I shouldn't go to the school I want to go to. I mean, surely if he knows about it and all you hypno do too, then someone must have written about it somewhere? If I learn enough, I might even be able to actually do something other than just see dead things and have to hide away from the people in black that you killed." I make a face. "Just how long have you been following me anyway?"

"_Since I was tasked with such,"_ he says. Even though we both know it's not an answer to my question, he says nothing more about it. _"Should you wish, Darling, when I am around you I can translate the speech of your comrades, much like what occurred in Alamanurr."_

I stare at my pokémon, swinging my legs as I do so. Kiki is still diligently practicing everything she's learning, whilst Mandy occasionally takes the time to fly straight into flocks of pidgeys with her illusionary selves. Cassie meanwhile . . . well, at least she's actually starting to hit the target I made for her. Granted I didn't mean for her to hit it with her _head_, but at least she's actually training . . . I think.

"I'm okay," I say. "I have a translator in my bag anyway – one of the human made ones. Dad bought it for me so that I could understand Kiki. She didn't want me to use it. I think she wants me to understand her properly, like all the other trainers do. If I use your help, then I'm cheating, aren't I?"

Diz looks at me, unblinkingly for a long time. Finally he shrugs and plays with the false fur collar of his jacket. _"That is surprisingly mature, Darling. I had thought you would leap on the chance to understand your pokémon. Most children your age would."_

"Most kids my age are _weird_," I say. "Besides, you wouldn't actually be helping me anyway. Mal Zin taught me stuff when I was in the hypno-kingdom and I still remember it – just don't tell him that. I don't want him to think he was right." Diz's laugh is like a fat man gasping for breath, but inside my mind. I can't help but feel a little creeped out by it. "He told me that if I want to learn something that I should work on it constantly, even if it seems like there will be a quicker way to learn it. I think you translating my pokémon is like that; I'll know what they mean when you're around, but if something happens to you or you're just not here, then I won't know what's happening." I hand him my pokédex and point at the screen. "It says I can find arbok around here. You're smart – make it tell me how I'm supposed to _find_ an arbok."

Diz's face makes him look like I've handed him a live bomb with a million different wires hanging out of it. _"Darling,_" he says finally, holding the machine by the edge, almost like it's diseased, _"what do you expect me to do with this?"_

"Use it?"

He snorts. It makes his nose look like someone pumped a sock full of air and then squished it all out again. I have to try my best not to laugh. _"And how, pray tell, do I do that? Do I look like I have had much contact with human appliances in my life?"_

I look at him and realise I don't even need to consider such a question, given that he's got a red scarf around his head and thick, brown _Ugg boots_ on his feet. He clearly knows _nothing_ about anything human.

"Alright," I say, snatching my pokédex back. "Fine. I'll think of something else to catch instead." I check the time on it quickly before closing it and shoving it into my jeans pocket. "We should probably head back to Pewter now anyway – Jerry's going to be at the pokémon centre in about an hour. And I think if Cassie keeps headbutting that tree, she's going to hurt something."

"_Clearly not herself,"_ Diz mutters. _"Though she still seems to have more wit about her than other humans I have encountered here. I watched one girl scream no less than twenty-three times and insist she had been touched by various different people, most of whom she had approached and screamed into their ears."_ He throws his hands up into the air and sighs. _"If I see her again, I'm going to lock her in a room full of zubat."_

**-O-O-O-**

"_Urgh. Why did you insist that we do all this dreadful _walking_? Need I remind you that I am quite capable of teleporting across long distances instantaneously?"_

"You do that if you want," I say, humming as I swing my arms to and fro. "I'm fine walking." It's nice to actually feel the breeze against my face and watch the way that the mountain grasses are slowly giving way to paved stones, little walls and even a tarmac road. Curiously the rocks and the mountain itself never seem to get cleared away, not matter how close we get to Pewter. It's almost like they just built it into the stones they found, rather than building around them. "Besides, I thought there was something funny about you not being able to teleport with Mandy around?"

Diz rolls his eyes at me. _"Darling, she makes teleportation more difficult, but she is not strong enough to blanket my abilities just yet. But who cares about the bird when my shoes are being ruined by these stones! Look at them!"_ He holds up a leg – thank _everything_ that he's wearing shorts – and I see the bottom of his Uggs covered with tiny little sharp stones. I fight the urge just to laugh at him for being so stupid. _"Cursed nature. Why doesn't it understand that it needs to bow down and allow me to be fashionable?"_

"I'll tell it right away."

"_I do not appreciate sarcasm when I'm not the one using it."_

"I was being totally serious," I say with as much innocence as I can muster. "I was going to tell the grass that it's evil because it makes your shoes all stained. And then I was going to tell the sky it was stupid for going dark when we should all be looking at you instead."

"_Pah!"_ Diz waves a hand at me. _"I do not have to stand around and listen to such things. Your brother will be here soon to meet you. I hope he finds your company more entertaining than I." _In a flash of light he's gone, leaving me alone with nothing but the breeze to keep me company. I shrug and continue on my way, because honestly it's nice to have the breathing space in my brain again.

Almost immediately after he vanishes, my phone starts shrieking at me with Jerry's calls. I sigh and ignore them, opting to just text him instead. I _know_ he means well and it'll be nice to have him round again, but I don't want to have to listen to the lectures that I know he's going to come out with. Because seriously, I don't see it as my fault that a bunch of crazy hypno decided to kidnap me and tell me I'm their messiah or something.

Explaining that to Jerry might actually make me sound a little bit crazy.

It takes me nearly an hour to get back into Pewter. I spend most of the time walking there with Mandy on my shoulder, trying to teach her new things. I haven't quite managed to get her to fetch on command, which would always prove to be fun. In the meantime, I settle for just teaching her new words and phrases. She's already pretty vicious in battle, but I want her to be able to listen to me, rather than just leaping for other pokémon's eyes. Given what she said in Alamanurr – which is still a weird way to think of it – I guess it has to be because they're the parts she usually eats first.

I pass the gym on my way back to the pokémon centre. Mandy fluffs up as the sounds of roaring onix echo even from outside. Even the sound of it is enough to make me shudder in memory of steelix. At least my gym battle didn't involve them. I was only told by one of the other trainers in there minutes before my battle that they have the habit of using onix in the battles. After seeing my pokédex tell me that it evolves into steelix, I was about three seconds away from running out of there in terror. Luckily the gym leader in there didn't use one of them on me. Just a rhyhorn, a geodude and a shuckle.

Mandy trills in my ear and stops me from hearing the doors of the gym open. It's all her fault that I smack straight into a boy as he walks out of there and smack my nose against his chest hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.

I feel a hand grab my shoulders to steady me just before Mandy shrieks and leaps at the owner. The hand moves away and when I blink away the tears, I'm treated with the sight of Mandy pecking at some vivid, dyed red-haired boy's head. I watch for just a minute before calling her back, smiling smugly as she nips the boy's nose before fluttering down on my shoulder.

He looks like he doesn't know what to say. "You alright darlin'?" he finally manages to ask. As I nod he glares at Mandy. "Whatever the hell that thing is, it's violently protective of ya. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing."

I shrug without displacing her from my shoulders. "You bumped into me. She only thought you were attacking me." I reach back and rub her head without looking. The boy raises an eyebrow at me.

"You ain't from around here, are ya?" he asks me. "Never seen one of those things before." He suddenly has a pokédex in his hands. "Mind if I take a look at what it is? Might wanna get myself one of 'em later on."

I knock Mandy off my shoulder and let her take to the sky. "Sure, you can scan her now." I've given up on counting the amount of times that people have asked me about her or Kiki. Most of the time the trainers are nice and let me scan their pokémon too. I think the most awesome one I've seen so far was a victreebel – and that was only because it still had the half-digested remains of a tauros stuck in its mouth. I still have no idea how it fit all of that inside it without bursting. I'd get one myself, but knowing my luck I'd just end up getting eaten by my plant, and that's not exactly a great way to die. It would be like the lamest tombstone ever. _'Here lies the moron that got ate to death by a plant.'_

"Name's Chase, by the way," the boy says, even as he follows Mandy with the camera on his pokédex. "You here for the gym, darlin'?"

"Nope." I grin at him, even though he's not looking at me and can't see it. "I've already got the badge from there. I'm just on the way to visit my brother. Have you beaten the gym yet?"

"Nah, just booked a battle is all. Just got out of Viridian Forest – bastards in there took their toll on my pokémon. Got me a few new ones to train up though, so it ain't all bad." He finally closes his pokédex and slides it back into the pocket of his bright green t shirt. "Coulda battled today, but I didn't really wanna battle a rock gym with nothin' but a xatu and a venonat – everything else is recovering or too new to battle. Even so, reckon it should be an easy win – the leader here's a slit eyed bastard; doubt he can see what the fuck's goin' on in front of his face, let alone in the battlefield beneath him." He smiles at me. His eyes are really bright blue, like ice. I can't help but want to look at them. "Alright then, cheers for that. Good luck with ya trainin'."

"You too," I say stupidly as he leaves. He has really nice eyes. I can't help but smile as I think of them. In a way I want to chase after him and hang around him, just so I can see them more, but I've got Jerry to meet and he'd never let me do something like that. If it was up to him, I'd be a little old lady in a rocking chair on a hill, with a house filled with nothing but purrloin.

What he doesn't realised is that in such a situation, I'd train all of them to sneak into the shops and steal me all the things I could ever want. And then I'd evolve them all and have an army of awesome stalky-cats guarding me from gastly and evil secret people that want to ask me about all the dead legends.

It feels like no time at all passes before I find myself inside the increasingly familiar setting of the pokémon centre. I wish that something interesting would happen in here, just so that it doesn't seem the same _all the time._ Maybe not something as horrible as someone running in with their pokémon dying in their arms – and nothing like what happened in Snowpoint, either – but something that at least makes staying here slightly interesting! Like a marching band composed entirely of dwarves.

I step inside the centre and find that there isn't a marching band of dwarves to greet me. Instead all I see are a few trainers sat around in the waiting room, watching tv screens displaying advertisements for this year's Kanto Tournament. There's a boy and a machop attempting to kick a vending machine in, not realising that a big security guard that looks like he could be part machoke watching them. The queue to get pokémon healed is actually quite long, but apparently this is about the time of year that all the new trainers start arriving in Pewter.

A familiar, warbling shriek is about all the warning I get before I'm nearly trampled by a racing dodrio. A breeze ghosts past my face and suddenly everything just looks all wrong, like one of those photos that's had all the colours turned the wrong way round. I blink and then it's all back to normal again and I'm treated with the sight of Annie floating in front of me, her zipper-mouth glistening in the light as Elizabeth clucks between her heads and apparently starts to have an argument between herself.

I'm just about to as where Jerry is when a pair of arms wrap themselves around me. My first instinct is to shriek and kick whoever's picking me up, but I only just manage to stop myself when I see that Annie and Elizabeth aren't attacking whoever it is.

Then despite _everything_ I know about my brother, the first thing I hear him say is, "I'm sorry."

I manage to look at him. His hair is still curly and the same brown as mine. His face is still covered in silly whiskers. I smoosh my hand against his face and find that it even _feels_ the same. So he's definitely Jerry. But the only problem is that my brother would _never_ apologise to me, especially not after I've just disappeared for a few weeks.

He puts me down and sits down on one of the big corner sofas the centre has a dozen of. Annie floats around us, eerily silent as Elizabeth attempts what I _think_ is meant to be a whistling song. It could be that her brains are melting, cartoon-style. If Jerry's apologising to me, I wouldn't be too surprised with that.

"I shouldn't have said those things to you that I did. I shouldn't have let you run off and then gone in the other direction. I should have chased after you instead of being selfish."

Wait, _what?_

I go to open my mouth to speak but Jerry shakes his head at me. "If I hadn't been so selfish, you wouldn't have gotten hurt. I did all of that just because . . . I don't even know really why I did it, other than thinking it would impress . . . it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're safe and I'm not going to do anything like that again." He hugs me. I squish his face again just to be certain it is him. When he sees my face, which has to be as blank and confused as my brain, he actually manages to smile. "I'm an ass, okay? Call me what you like, scream at me or whatever. Just know that I'm sorry about all of that. I shouldn't have let you wander off like that."

Even though he's already disappeared off to who-knows-where, I hear in my mind a very familiar voice sing, _"You're welcome."_

"Diz?" I say without meaning to. Jerry raises an eyebrow at me. I cough self-consciously. "Diz is a hypno that helped me. He left me in the hospital here."

Surprise colours Jerry's face. "You caught a hypno?"

"Not really . . . he more sort of follows me, I guess? But not in a stalkery sort of way!" Well, I guess he _does_, but not in the way that all the stories say about hypno. "He's helped me out here and there. He's like my unofficial bodyguard! Trust me, if he was _my_ pokémon, I'd make him wear pants."

"You have a hypno bodyguard . . . that doesn't wear pants?"

I sigh. Just what did Diz do to his brain? I mean, sure I didn't want to have to listen to Jerry go on and lecture me about how I should be careful and everything, but this just isn't the same. If he's going to be all apologetic and sorry about everything, it should be for something that he's actually done!

More than that – who does that stupid hypno think he is that he can mess around with _my_ brother's brain? If anyone's allowed to do that, it's me, not some creepy underground network of psychics that don't even understand not to have their junk flapping around for everyone to see!

"Jerry," I say seriously, "I need to talk to you. It's about . . . all the dead stuff." Thankfully he doesn't argue with me when I tell him that we have to talk about it in my room. He follows me up the stairs, recalling Elizabeth as he does so, but keeps Annie out, floating around us. I want to ask just what she was so ill with if she couldn't travel long distances all at once, but I have to be focused right now. I know that Jerry understands how serious this is when he gets into my room and doesn't even comment on the fact that I've just left all my clothes thrown over the floor. There's even a t-shirt in the bathroom sink, but I honestly have no idea how that happened.

"So what happened?" he asks.

I take a deep breath and tell him everything – that all his thoughts about this argument we had aren't real. That they were all planted there by a bunch of hypno that think I'm going to help save them or something, that apparently I'm not going to be able to stop seeing legends die until the right time and that Diz is actually from that underground place and is trying to keep me alive because if I die, everything keeps happening and it means that they have to try and find the next person who all this is going to happen to.

When I finish, Jerry's pace is pale. There's a slight buzzing in the air that catches my attention. It seems to catch Annie's too. Suddenly she shrieks and drops to the floor. There's a flash of light and when I open my eyes again, Annie's floating around as if nothing ever happened and Jerry's sat on the bed opposite me, looking at me expectantly.

"So," he says. "What did you want to tell me?"

I just give him a look that should tell him what a moron he is. "Not funny," I say. "I've just told you all about —"

"_Hello Darling! Did you miss me?"_

I manage not to scream as Diz just randomly leaves my bathroom. I'm sure that he wasn't in there when we got here, unless he was hiding in the back of the toilet like some sort of creepy gremlin. Jerry narrows his eyes at him, Annie shrieks things that _can't_ be anything my parents would ever allow me to hear and Diz just ignores them both in favour of smiling at me. _"How delightful it is to be free of all those grassy stains. I tell you, the next time we go hiking through the mountains, please warn me in advance so I can plan my outfit accordingly."_

Jerry's head seems to be swivelling constantly between Diz and I. "This is that hypno you mentioned, right?"

I nod. "Yeah, remember, I told you about him before we got up here –"

"And you said you were going to tell me something important, I remember. You haven't said anything since we got here though."

I glance at Diz. He says nothing, but there's a smug smile etched across his face. I don't know how, but somehow I just _know_ that he's had something to do with this. "Hold on a sec," I say as I stand, "I just need to talk to Diz for a minute." I'm tempted to drag him out of the room by his ears like my parents have done to me before when I've annoyed them. But somehow I get the feeling dragging something that can explode my brains with a thought isn't the best of ideas.

The hallway is bland, bright and white. I can understand why people go crazy when they're forced to sleep out here overnight. _"So Darling, what do you want to say that you can't say in front of your dear brother?"_

I cross my arms and glare up at him. "You did something." He doesn't even try to deny it. He just shrugs and spins his pendulum around his fingers. "First you mess with his brain so that you can take me and hold me in some stupid underground kingdom, and now you've taken over his brain again to make him forget that I've told him about all of that! Why did you do it?"

"_Well, you like your brother alive, don't you?"_

A cold fear burns its way through my veins. "W-what?" I stutter. "What's that meant to mean?"

Diz continues spinning his pendulum as if it's the most important thing in the world. He doesn't even bother looking away from it to me. _"Why don't you take a moment and think about it, hm? You've got myself and various other allies attempting to maintain your existence. If your brother not only knew about Alamanurr, but also about everything we told you, both of our enemies could use him for their own gain. Wiping his memory is the only thing that will keep something from catching a passing glimpse into his brain and dissecting it for their own purposes." _He sighs. _"Admittedly, I did not wipe his mind – such a thing isn't quite possible. Instead I buried the memories so deep in his brain that only a psychic as strong or stronger than myself could recover them._

"_But, if you truly wish to confide in him the details once more, I will not stop you, nor will I take actions to reverse the damage you may cause. The decision is yours, Darling; would you rather your brother be clueless and breathing, or know everything and dead?"_

A hundred different arguments filter through my brain. In the end I settle on shoving the stupid pokémon against the wall. "You're an _ass_," I tell him. He dusts off his jacket as he bounces from the wall, his eyes glowing ever-so-slightly. I fold my arms and continue glaring at him, even if he is capable of blowing up my head with his thoughts. "Why didn't you _tell_ me that I couldn't say anything to Jerry? Why would you just sit there and say nothing, then just wipe all his thoughts afterwards?"

Diz shrugs. _"Had I told you in advance, it would have been blaring around in your skull like a foghorn for all to hear. Unless that bird is circled around your skull, Darling, you have the nasty habit of broadcasting your thoughts to every psychic creature within range. It's dreadfully bothersome, I can tell you that much. At least this way you understand the need for secrecy – which will also help you silence your own thoughts on the subject. Or, if nothing else, it may teach you a little about blocking some of the thoughts you don't want others to hear."_

I don't have an argument for that. Instead I settle on just shouting, "You're a _jackass!"_

"_That may be, Darling, but I'm also the jackass that's saving your brother's life."_

I want nothing more than to punch the smile off this _stupid_ hypno's face! "I hate you!" I scream at him instead. "You follow me everywhere and you don't actually tell me anything, and that's after you kill creepy people stalking me and then take me to some massive underground kingdom with creepy demon-things that hunt you and _everything!_ You think you know what's best for me and you act like my shadow when all you're actually doing is just messing with my brother's brain and rooting around in mine for some reason!" His eyes flicker at that – just the tiniest hint of blue. It's all the proof I need. "Exactly! You don't even deny it! Go away, Diz. I don't want to see you again if you keep doing this."

His ear flatten against his skull. _"If that is what you wish, then that is what shall happen."_ I try my best to ignore just how sad his voice sounds in my head. _"But make no mistake, Darling, I am not about to stop following you. That is what I have been tasked with, that is what I shall do. If you do not wish to see me, I shall remain out of sight, but I will _not_ stop my duties just because of a slight temper tantrum. One small piece of parting advice though, Darling. Stay here for another two days. Then you will find an opportunity you will wish to take."_

In a flash of light he's gone, leaving me alone in the hallway. I hear people trying to inch open their doors to see just what's been happening. Red-faced, I charge into my room and slam the door behind me.

"What's wrong?" Jerry asks when he sees me. I sniff and wipe my cheeks with my hands, painfully aware of the traitorous tears that sneak their way out of my eyes. "Where'd your hypno go?"

"Away," I growl. "I didn't want him hovering around me. He –" I cut myself off. I might not like him, but I know that Diz was telling the truth. He's only trying to help me and Jerry. "He was acting like a massive butthole," I say instead. "I told him to either stop that or to go away. He went away."

"That sucks," Jerry says as he hugs me. "Do you want to leave Pewter, get away from everything for a while?"

Some small part of me wants to. Yet I can't forget what Diz said. "No, I wanna stay. At least for a couple more days." I manage to grin up at him. "By the way, did I tell you I beat the gym here?"

**-O-O-O-**

Two days later I find myself sat in the pokémon centre canteen again, this time on my own whilst Jerry checks up on the pokémon he's left to train at the gym. Mandy and Cassie are there too, training against how to fight against pokémon as _immovable as rock _ - as the gym leader keeps saying _every_ _time_ we go there. I think he's a robot or something, or maybe he just got knocked on the head a few too many times, because that's the only thing I can think of that would explain any of that.

Jerry still doesn't quite believe that I managed to beat the gym with only Kiki. Even after the leader himself has told Jerry as much, he still thinks that we're making it all up to trick him. Please. If I was going to trick him with anything, I'd do so much better than a simple gym badge. I'd make him think that I've been elected queen of the universe.

From across the table, Kiki spits a watermelon seed at me. I glare at her as she smirks impishly. "You've been spending too much time around Mandy," I accuse, right before I fling mashed potatoes at her. They hit her face with a brilliant _splat_ and get stuck in all her needles. She hisses something at me as she begins to attempt to clean the dripping remains on her face.

As that's happening, I spot a person with bright, curly red hair queuing for their food. For a moment I stop everything I'm doing and think that it's someone I know, but then I remember that I'm in Kanto and who's honestly going to have come all the way over here just for their trainer journey?

Then he turns around and I see that it is, in fact, someone I know. Toby Grint used to be one of my best friends up until the point he decided pokémon were the coolest thing ever and started talking about nothing but them all day. He ran off and joined the _popular_ kids who all sat around talking about pokémon all day. He sees me from across the cafeteria and by the way his eyes widen, I know he recognises me. I smile back, because a little part of me is happy to see him – right up until the moment he heads straight towards mine and Kiki's table.

"What're you doing here?" he squeals as he throws his tray down and sits next to me – practically on _top_ of me. Kiki growls at him from across the table but it's not enough to dissuade him. "You've still got your maractus. Awesome. I thought you didn't want to be a pokémon trainer? Last I heard you were going to some big history school, but then everyone said that you and Craig just vanished."

I look at my food and poke it around the tray. Suddenly I'm not hungry anymore. "Yeah . . ." I sigh. "I'm not sure what happened to Craig. It's sort of why I started being a trainer – so that I can find him. But then I'm also trying to get enough badges to get a scholarship into a school I want to go to."

"_School_." Toby makes a face. I see all the half-eaten food in his mouth. "Why would you want to bother with that? I'm going to be a Champion and then no one will ever make me have to go to school again! Since my dad's from Kanto, they let me start my journey over here and my venipede's nearly evolving already – isn't that cool?"

"Yeah," I say, remembering his bug and the fact that it only ever seemed to sleep all day long. It wasn't exactly something that made me want to become a pokémon trainer. "I've got a vullaby and a snorunt."

His smile threatens to take over his face. "That's awesome. Are they here now? Can I see them?"

"They're in the gym actually – I paid for them to go through that training course against rocky pokémon."

"Meh." Toby shrugs and shoves his food around his plate with his fingers. "I don't see the point in that. Easier to find a few feral pokémon and beat them up – it's free! But I caught a pidove before I left Unova and I've gotten a bellsprout, a rattata and a caterpie since I got here. Didn't you know you're meant to catch a pokémon each time you go into a new area?"

"No you're not," I say quickly, trying to ignore the fact that he's caught more pokémon than me. "That's _stupid_. How are you going to train all of them enough?"

"Oh right. I forgot that since you're a _girl_ you wouldn't know about these things. My cousins told me all about it - that you're meant to catch a new pokémon each time you visit a new area because the more pokémon you have, the more battles you can win."

I just sit there, waiting for him to smile and reveal it's all a joke. He doesn't. I'm tempted to smack my hand against my forehead. I mean, he's the one that always wanted to be a pokémon trainer, not me, so _surely_ he should at least know a few more things than I do?

"Are you travelling with anyone at the moment?" he asks me, mouth full of food.

I make a face. Do _not_ need to see vegetables in such a state, thank you. "Just my brother at the moment."

"Lame," Toby says almost instantly. He snorts and juice trickles out of his nose. I roll my eyes at him. "Can you even do anything with your brother around? At least I'm not travelling with family. I'm here with Li and Andy."

My fork stops halfway to my mouth. Kiki looks in my direction, mash potatoes still dripping from her face. "Li and Andy from our class?" I ask. Toby nods and I feel the need to hide under the table. Li's nice – as little as I ever spoke to her. She never really had much to say to me and her dad never really liked her having friends round or visiting anyone. I'm a little surprised she's allowed to travel, to be honest. But Andy . . . it's impossible not to remember him. At Craig's tenth birthday, Andy gave him a wedgie and then tried to give me one too – which ended with me punching him in the nose. Then when Mum found out about it, she waited until Andy's birthday and stormed round his house and gave _his_ mum a wedgie in front of _everyone_ and told her that she should do a better job of raising her kids.

I don't really know what happened after that, but I know that the police were round my house a lot and Dad had to pick me up from school until I finished.

"Andy still doesn't like you, by the way. Your mum ruined his birthday party."

"Then he shouldn't have tried to wedgie me at Craig's party. It's not my fault he's a butthead." I glance at Kiki, shriek and duck under the table as the needle shoots through where I was sitting. I manage to poke my head just above the table and find Kiki glowering at Toby, though she spares me a strange look. If she was any other pokémon, I'd say it was like she was slightly proud. But Kiki can't be proud of me for avoiding her needles – she's evil and likes inflicting pain.

"Why don't you travel with us?" I look at Toby like he's lost his mind. I'm slightly convinced he has. If Andy and I travel together anywhere, it will end with wedgies and him bleeding from the face again. "Come on! You'll be able to get away from your brother for a little while." He stands up suddenly, spilling his food down his jeans. He doesn't seem to notice. "Li! Andy! Over here! Look who I found!"

As the entire cafeteria turns to look at us, I want to bury my head in the sand and pretend I'm not here. Li sits down with us first, sparing Kiki a small, nervous smile. Kiki sneers back at her. I get the mental image of Li's long, black hair getting stuck on Kiki's needles and try my best not to smile. Andy sits next to Toby instead, shoving both of us further along the table. Kiki snarls at him for his efforts. Andy snarls back at her.

Kiki's going to murder him and the police are only going to find the scraps of his bright blue t shirt and his bleach-blonde hair. Maybe one of his eyeballs too – unless Mandy eats it first. I can see her flying around in here quite happily, a blue eyeball dangling from her beak.

"I didn't think that you were going to become a pokémon trainer," Li says, "what made you become one?" She leans across the table, her hair falling free of her ponytail. "Is it something to do with how Craig disappeared?"

"Yeah, we all heard about that," Andy chimes in. I expect him to be a jerk about it, but instead he actually asks, "Is everything alright with him? Everyone's saying that the police were looking through his house and that him and his mother have both gone missing."

"I don't know where he is. I'm travelling because I'm trying to find him, but I'm also collecting badges so I can get a scholarship for a school I want to go to."

"So am I," Li says. "Pokémon doctors need ten different badges from specific gym leaders and have to have pokémon of certain strength to qualify." She leans back and tucks her hair back behind her ear, glancing nervously at Kiki. My maractus doesn't pay her much attention. "It's nice what you're doing for Craig though. Not many people would bother travelling everywhere to try and find their friend."

"Well she's obviously not doing a very good job if she hasn't found him yet."

My hands clench into a fist around my knife and fork before I can stop myself. I only get to imagine pulling out Andy's tongue and feeding it back to him as Toby tells him to shut up and knocks him from the table.

"She's doing more than you are," Toby points out. "Besides, we all know you wouldn't do that for anyone – we saw how quickly you ran away when that ursaring started tracking us."

Andy turns bright red. "I was looking for a ranger!"

"You hid in a tree and had your oddish try to cover us in sleeping powder when we approached." Li stabs her fork deep into her potato. It bleeds butter all over her plate. "Do you know how big the world is? Of course you don't – you failed every geography test we ever did. Finding one person in the world is almost impossible." She sees the way my face drops and turns bright red. "Of course, that's not to say it will never happen. I mean, people can use psychic pokémon and ghosts to track people down and everything."

"Maybe we can help!" Toby declares. "I was saying that we should all travel together anyway, so with four of us looking we should at least find _something_."

"I don't know," I say. I mean, Toby and Li are nice enough, but if I have to travel with Andy I'm going to feed him to an ekans. "I mean I need to head to Cinnabar next anyway-"

"Perfect!" Toby shouts. "We're going towards Pallet anyway, so we can all travel there, then you can carry on and take the ship from there."

I go to argue, but it seems the decision's already been made for me. I meet Kiki's eyes across the table and she gestures, looping spaghetti around her arm and letting it dangle freely. I'm confused until she attaches a blob of mashed potatoes to the end of it. Even though her creation falls apart, I still understand her. Diz said something like this would happen. An opportunity I would wish to take. Since he's psychic, he has to know what will happen if I travel with these guys.

Though he could also have told me it just so I get swallowed by a rampaging snorlax, just to spite me.

But it's not like I've relied on Diz to protect me all my life. I won't know if he wants me dead or not unless I follow his advice and see if it leads to something dangerous or not.

If it does lead to something dangerous . . . I can always join up with the bisharp and gothitelle instead. Sure they might be creepy, but at least they're pretty upfront in wanting to kill me. I'd rather deal with that then wondering if the pinch in my back is my imagination or just the dagger waiting to slip in when I least suspect it.


	17. Eenie Meanie Miney Mo

_Dear Diary,_

_I find my thoughts becoming . . . scattered, as of late. It is almost as if there is too much going on – so much so that even my mind cannot handle it. I need to record my thoughts, my plans, my ideas. But where is safe enough for me to leave them? I cannot trust you, diary, for your pages are naught but paper, readable by anyone with the skill._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Eenie, Meanie, Miney, Mo|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

"So is this the point where you go all crazy and tell me that I'm not allowed to go travelling with them? Because I've heard all those arguments before." To be honest, I kinda agree with all of those arguments at the moment. I know that Diz said that I should take an opportunity that presents itself, but I don't _really_ want to have to hang out with all these kids that I never really got along with in school anyway.

Then to my surprise, Jerry turns round and says, "Actually, it might be good for you." I think my jaw actually hits the floor. "It's been a while since you travelled with anyone your own age. I know that you don't want your older brother following you around all of the time, and now that Annie's better I'll keep her in reserve, just in case I need to use her to travel all that distance to meet you."

"B-but!" I stutter. This was meant to be my way out of it! What's happened to Jerry? Have the hypno messed with his brains more than I thought? He shouldn't be this nice. He has to be planning something. He's never this nice unless Punch is about to jump out of a closet and scare me.

Just to be sure, I check to make certain there are no closets randomly in the pokémon centre's waiting room. There aren't, but he could be hiding beneath a sofa. I'm not sure how, given that I don't think I could fit beneath one of them, but _something_ has to be going on here.

"Look, I've been thinking about it whilst I couldn't get in contact with you," Jerry says. His hair has a twig stuck in it. I don't know how it's gotten there, but it seems happy nestled in with all his curls. "While we both need to be in Kanto right now, we need to be in different places. I can put off my gym circuit for a while, sure, but you're going to want to head over to Johto after you've gotten your badges here." He runs a hand through his hair, finds the twig and looks at it with as much confusion as I do. "Part of being a trainer is being able to survive on your own. If I'm following you around all the time, you're not going to learn anything. And I guess, in a way that's more dangerous than me not being near you, if that makes any sense at all.

"I'm not saying that I don't want you around, but what I _am_ saying is that if you rely on me for everything, the moment I'm not there you're going to find yourself in trouble that you can't work your way out of. Does that make sense to you?"

"Yeah…" I admit begrudgingly. "But that doesn't mean I have to go with them, right? I mean, Toby's being stupid with his pokémon – he thinks that he has to capture something every time he goes somewhere new. All his pokémon are going to be weak and die."

Jerry shrugs. "Then maybe you should go with them to show them what they should be doing. Or you could just travel with me instead until I get to Saffron – when I go to Vermilion, you can go back to Lavender for your badge, or even come with me to Vermilion and head to Cinnabar."

I sigh. "I don't know. Why do _I_ have to make the decision? Can't someone else just decide for me?"

"Aren't you usually complaining that you never get to decide anything on your own?"

"That's not the point," I huff. "I just . . ." _I wanted you to stop me from going._ It sounds stupid even thinking it. Toby used to be one of my best friends, Li's okay and well, Andy can always just get eaten by an ursaring or something. "It's just that when we spoke about travelling, Craig and I always agreed that we'd travel together. Now he's not here and I might be going with them instead, it just feels weird."

Then to my surprise, Jerry stands up and hugs me. I'm convinced something has to be wrong as he leans down and buries his chin in my hair. "I know how you feel about Craig. I've had friends that have disappeared. I've had friends that have died. Sometimes being a trainer isn't as glamorous as people make it sound. Sleep on it, alright? If you're still not sure what you want to do in the morning, then don't do anything. Whatever you decide, I'll back you up."

I can't think of anything to say, so instead I just hug him back, whilst questions of him being hypnotised burn in the back of my mind.

**-O-O-O-**

Come the morning, I'm still not certain on what I want to do. I sit on my bed as the sunrise streaks through orange between my blinds, the sounds of my brother's snoring filling the room and I consider the coin in my hand. Dad would tell me I'm stupid for leaving everything up to a simple coin toss. Mum would just laugh and tell me something like it's how she decided on marrying my dad.

Heads I go with Tony and the others, tails I stick with Jerry. I flip the coin up in the air, watch with baited breath as it falls down to the ground –

And beyond everything that's possible, it lands on its side.

"_What?" _I shriek in a whisper. "That's not possible." I get out of my bed and prod the coin. It's wedged perfectly in a tiny crack in the floor I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. I look around the room, grabbing my pillow as a shield-stroke-weapon. "Diz, did you do this?" I hiss. "If you're hanging around in my shadow or something, I'm going to sit in darkness all the time! Then you'll never be able to follow me anywhere!"

He doesn't reveal himself. In fact, nothing happens, save my brother breaking the silence as he sounds like he's suffocating on his own tongue. Finally he rolls over, smooshes his face into the wall and continues sleeping. He always sleeps in the same way. How he manages to sleep through smashing his face into things is beyond me.

In that moment, I realise how used to my brother I am. Everything he said starts to make sense in my brain. Since he's always looked out for me, of course I'm going to be relying on him all the time. How many times did I hope he'd find me when I was in the hypno-kingdom? He said that I wouldn't get stronger if I carry on hanging out around him. He'll keep protecting me and in the end, neither of us will benefit.

But more than that . . . I'm scared of what Diz will do to him. He's already had his memories played around with – and his brain in the first place, just so they could keep me in Alamannur in the first place. How far will Diz go to try and get what he wants? I know he won't hurt me, but . . . it's the safest option for Jerry and me.

"Jerry," I say, shaking him awake. "I've made up my mind. Jerry!" He grunts a little, rolls over and snores. "Come _on_!" I growl and shake him harder. Finally his eyes peek open. I grin at him, even if he isn't sure what's happening yet and continue shaking him. "I've made up my mind. I'm gonna travel with Toby and the others."

He manages to say something that sounds like, "Unghuh." I try my best not to laugh as he blinks himself awake, runs a hand through his hair and gets it stuck in the mess of curls. "You're travelling with your friends?" he finally asks, stopping to yawn. "What made you make up your mind?"

_Because my stalker hypno keeps playing with your brains. _I shrug and plop down heavily on his bed. "I guess what you said makes sense. I need to travel around on my own, because when I get into the school in Anville, it's not like you're going to be there with me. So maybe it's better if I learn how to do things on my own and with people about my age that I'm not certain will stick around if something bad happens, because they're the sort of people that the school will make me pair up with."

Jerry laughs as he rubs his knuckles against my head. "They do say girls mature faster than boys." He doesn't stop laughing as I shove him away, glaring. "You're totally sure?"

"Totally."

"Alright." He yawns again, slides out of bed, pulls a pair of jeans from the floor and sniffs them. Apparently they're clean enough because he pulls them on, shakes his head and smiles at me. "Okay then. So when are you leaving? Do we have time for breakfast first?" As if on cue, his stomach rumbles. "Because apparently I'm hungry."

"I'm not sure yet. I think maybe when they're awake? They said they're leaving today at about eight, so about then I guess."

Jerry nods and looks at the window. "And of course, you woke up at the crack of dawn." He yawns again. "At least we've got time for breakfast. You can head downstairs first and get yourself something. I need to pee like no one's business. I'll catch up."

He doesn't comment on the fact that I've already packed everything I need and my backpack is ready on my bed. I slide it on and make my way downstairs, humming as I do so. My poké balls knock against each other in my hoodie's pocket. The sound fills the otherwise silent hallways and makes me think that I should really think about buying a belt or something for them to go on. It's got to be easier than leaving them in my pockets.

The canteen is next to empty when I walk in. A couple of trainers are sat down, tables to themselves, silently eating as they fiddle with their pokédexs and read through books as thick as my arm. They're all taking notes as they do so, except for one girl sat at the back of the room with a fat skitty lounging on the table. Even from the other side of the room I can hear it purring as she rubs its stomach.

I entertain myself with thoughts of the fat skitty being chased by a pack of rattata as I collect my breakfast. They have stacks of pokémon bowls next to the trays, all somehow spotlessly white. I grab three of them and wonder how long it will be before my pokémon ruin them.

With a table to myself, I let out my pokémon and let them have something to eat too. Predictably, Mandy dives in and manages to cover herself in jelly and bits of meat, Cassie freezes her food and nibbles at the corners of it, whilst Kiki glares at it as if it's poison. I don't bother to wait for her to make up her mind before diving into my own food. She's only just decided to spear an apple on her arm when Jerry slides down onto the seat next to me and grins.

"Your pokémon are insane," he notes, scrambled eggs falling off his fork as he watches Mandy continue to roll in the food. "I'm pretty sure she never did anything like that when I owned her. That's your fault." I don't even bother trying to say anything to deny it. I don't understand Mandy – even when what she said was being translated, I was still lost. Jerry looks up, snorts and nudges me with his elbow. "Is it just me or does that table look like it's about to break under that skitty's weight?"

I snort orange juice out of my nose at the thought. Mandy trills with laughter, even as Kiki glares at me and Cassie freezes the juice on the table and begins to eat it.

"Seriously," Jerry says. "You know what it reminds me of? You remember Aunt Sally's what was it – _third_ – marriage? Where she wore that pink dress and had all those freaky hairless meowth following her up the aisle? That fat skitty looks like her in that dress."

I fall apart laughing at it. "No wonder why that guy divorced her pretty quickly," Jerry says, even as I continue laughing. "I think when your wife _waddles_ up the aisle, you've got problems."

"You're so mean," I say between laughs.

"No I'm not," he says innocently. "I wonder what that girl called the skitty. I really hope it's called Sally."

"_Stop_!" I say breathlessly. Cassie joins me in laughing, rolling across the table as she does so. I don't know why she's doing it, but the sight of her kicking her tiny little legs in the air makes it harder to stop laughing.

He waits until the laughter has finally drawn away to ask, "So do you know where you're going with the others first?"

I shrug, aimlessly poking my spoon into my cereal. "Viridian Forest. That's where they're going – then they're stopping at Pallet to talk to Professor Oak. So after that I'm gonna go to Cinnabar. Once I get the badge there I'll probably take a ship to Fuchsia and then go back up to Lavender."

"You've planned out the way you're going to go already?"

"Yes," I say, trying to pretend that I'm not offended by how surprised he is. "I _am_ a trainer, you know? I can decide for myself what way I'm going to go around the country."

"I know. I just still find it hard to believe you're able to plan a journey. I still remember you being confused about the directions to take to get to the park."

My ears burn red. "I wasn't _that_ bad!" I protest. "And besides, the way to get to the park was all twisty and silly. _You_ got lost a few times before too!"

"But I didn't get distracted by the ice cream van on the way and follow it until I got lost." I have nothing that I can say to that. Instead I just smile as innocently as possible. "Looks like you're wanted already," Jerry says with a full mouth.

I spin around to see where he's looking and find Toby walking towards us. He grins at me, looks at my pokémon and gets so distracted by them he nearly falls flat on his face.

"Still as graceful as ever, I see," Jerry says.

"Oh. Hi Jerry." I forgot how awkward Toby looks when he's around Jerry. Even before we stopped being friends, he would always just become all quiet and shy around him. It's weird. I kick Jerry under the table to stop him scaring Toby, but he just gives me a totally clueless look that belongs on a slowpoke. "So are you ready to leave?" Toby says to me. "Andy wants to leave now, before it gets really hot and everyone starts getting up."

I look at my food and then my phone. I thought I'd have more time with Jerry before I left. I want to say no, but Jerry just smiles and lets me know it's fine.

"Alright," I say, "just let me recall my pokémon and I'll meet you guys in the waiting room."

"See you there!" He looks at Jerry and then quickly at his feet. "B-bye Jerry."

Toby leaves faster than I've seen him walk, ever. I shrug and poke the remains of my food, suddenly not hungry anymore.

"You'll be fine," Jerry tells me. "I'm only a phone call away, if you get in trouble. I'll even let you go into the waiting room on your own. Wouldn't want you to look lame by saying bye to your brother in front of everyone."

"I don't care if they think I'm lame." I still hug him anyway. I recall my pokémon and hug him again, just because I don't know how long it's going to be until I see him again. "You promise you're only a phone call away?"

"Night or day," he says. "So long as Annie's able, I'll be there within a matter of moments. If it's that bad, you can ring Dad. He'll have Bruce teleport to you faster than Annie can."

"Alright," I say. I wonder if Dad would mind if I had him teleport at any time to come and see me. Talking to them on the phone just isn't the same. "I'll see you soon?"

"Whenever you want to meet up again. Until then, I'm going to see if that fat skitty is actually called Sally."

I can't stop the laugh that comes out. "You're such a dork."

"And you're a geek."

I have to hug him again and turn away before I'm tempted to stand there calling him names until it's too late to leave with everyone else. I don't look back as I leave the canteen, just because I don't trust myself to keep tear-free if I see him all sad.

"You're finally here then." Of course Andy would bring me straight back to reality by being a jerk. The waiting room is empty aside from the people working there, Li, Toby and us. "Do you have any idea how long we've been waiting?"

"About ten minutes," Li says, "which is less than the amount of time we had to wait when you broke the toilet in the pokémon centre in Vermilion." She smiles at me as Andy turns bright red. "Thanks for coming with us. Hopefully it should be fun."

"Hopefully," I say, smiling as best as I can. "If not, we can always leave Andy in a tree and surrounded by angry sewaddle."

The fact that Li actually laughs at that makes me realise that maybe this won't be as bad as I've been thinking it's going to be.

**-O-O-O-**

It's nearly midday when we come up to Viridian Forest, but the trees are tall enough that they block out most of the sun. I stand in the shade, staring into the dark holes that seem to be the only way in.

"I thought there was a reception building nearby," Li points out. "Where the rangers make sure you've got enough antidotes and camping equipment for the journey."

"Who needs that? We can just go in there and take charge of everything!"

"Because that worked out so well when you ran off screaming, hiding in a tree with your oddish."

Andy's face nearly turns purple. "I didn't ask what you wanted, Li! If I wanted to ask you something, it'd be how to say your stupid name!"

"It's not my fault you're too stupid to pronounce a non-Unovan name. Xiang isn't a hard name to say. Perhaps your tongue is just too fat."

I sigh. Only a few hours in and already it feels like days. _This_ is why I didn't want to travel with them. Andy's a jerk, Toby just sits off to the side and does nothing, but he'll side with Andy over Li all the time. Maybe I could just let Cassie out and have her freeze Andy in a block of ice. We could leave him for the beedrill. Or for the sun to melt him. Whatever happens first, I'm really not bothered.

"I'm going to find the reception building," I say.

"I didn't ask what you thought. And I said we're not going there."

_How_ did they survive so long with him being such an idiot? "I don't care what you think. _I'm_ going there. If you want to go wandering in the forest and get poisoned by weedle, I'm totally fine with that. But I don't want to get hollowed out by poison, so I'm going there, since you decided to run out of Pewter before even thinking about what you'd need."

I start walking, unsurprised to find Li by my side. "At least someone has some sense," she mutters, casting glares back at Andy. He stands there, red-faced and apparently unable to form words. Toby just looks between us, like a lost little deerling waiting for everyone to be friends again. He's really not good at making decisions. "I would have ended up going with them, if only because they'd end up hurting themselves. And I don't really want to walk through the forest on my own."

"We'll be fine," I say. Inwardly I panic just a little. I can walk along roads and find my way across the country like that without _many_ problems, but a forest? What if I take a wrong turn somewhere? What if I end up angering a load of scyther and they all start chasing me, slicey-arms all after my neck? We skirt around the outside of the forest, following the dirt path until a building appears just outside the forest. It's a huge log cabin, easily as big as any of the buildings back in Pewter and even has a few pidgey sat on the roof, cooing away happily.

"I can't use Kiki much while we're in there. It's full of bugs and poisonous things - she's not good at defending herself against them. I'll probably have to use Mandy a lot - she's my vullaby." Li's fiddling nervously with her pokédex. I see that she's written her own notes over one of the pages about pokémon in Viridian Forest. I try to sneak a look, but whatever she's written is all sciencey and too confusing for me to understand. "What pokémon do you have? If we don't have many that can help us, we should probably rent one or something." When did I become the responsible one? Guess Ali and Jerry's lessons have worn off on me.

"Oh, sorry," Li finally grunts. "I have three - an audino, a zubat and a tropius. The tropius is still young and only about as tall as me though, and I've only had the zubat for a fortnight." She frowns, twirling her hair around a finger. "Should we rent a pokémon? It might be better for us."

I'm struck with the thought of my own personal slicey-armed scyther, standing over me as I sleep, blades shining in the moonlight. The mental image makes me shudder. "Maybe not," I say, shaking my head. "Kiki probably won't like anything we rent. She'd spend the whole time giving it evil glares of doom."

"She still does that?" Li giggles. "She used to scare me, back when we were in school. That's why I never really spoke to you much. All she used to do was glare at me. I thought she might attack me if I even looked at you."

"Really?" I guess that explains why people didn't really talk to me when Kiki was around. Not that I can blame them. I wouldn't want to talk to something with an evil-looking cactus following them around either. "But yeah, she still does that. It's kinda creepy, to be honest. She doesn't like anything or anyone talking to me. It takes her ages to understand when I've caught a new pokémon. The first time she saw Cassie she tried to throw her out the window."

Li's laughter dies away a little as we approach the log cabin's porch. I'm reminded of all of Dad's films he used to watch late at night - which usually ended up with him screaming like a little girl and Mum sighing and eating all the popcorn. How many of them had places that looked just like this, hiding a creepy stalkery axe murderer inside? Or some sort of half-pokémon hybrid?

I have to try my best not to imagine such things as I open the door. I'm surprised to find the inside is set out pretty much the same as a pokémon centre. A couple of trainers wander around, and I'm not sure if the bugs that fly happily around the place belong to anyone or not, but so long as I don't get kidnapped by that evil-looking butterfree I won't complain.

"Butterfree are so beautiful, don't you think?" Li asks, watching it flap around above us. I try my best not to check if she's got a brain inside her head. Does she not see the evil face in its wings? Or the long mouth-thingy that it stabs plants with? I've seen videos of beautifly stabbing other pokémon and people with one of those.

Instead I ignore her and make my way up to the big counter in the middle of the room. A few people are busy typing away at computers, apparently used to the bugs crawling around everywhere. There's even a weepinbell casually swinging from the ceiling. I look up and watch it, promising it certain doom if it dares to fall down and land on my head.

After the man there tells me that the weepinbell isn't going to fall down and swallow my face - not that I trust him about such things - I quickly gather up as many medical kits as I'm allowed to take. Li takes her share too, but they don't let us take any for Toby and Andy, even though they are actually real and we're not making them up for more free stuff. Instead we have to tell the rangers exactly where they entered the forest so that they can try and track them and make sure they don't get eaten by a vileplume or something.

"You don't think Andy would get eaten by a vileplume, do you?" Li asks as we leave. I shrug and start to lead us towards the forest. It begins to try and swallow us, bringing us further into the gloomy dark depths. I look at all the trees that are wider than my house and wonder what might be hiding behind them - or even inside. The grass comes up to my waist easily, and what I'm fairly sure is a servine slithers along, pokes its head out and then dives back into the undergrowth.

"I think he's stupid enough to try and annoy one," I say. The grass proves difficult to walk in. Apparently there was a path here a few weeks ago. I don't even know how grass grows this fast, but there has to be a pokémon involved somehow. There are loads of legends about ones that control nature and can control plants in different ways -

And maybe it would be a _really _good thing if they weren't responsible for this. Maybe someone just smeared a load of poop over the ground and that got the grass to grow.

"Either way, we should keep one of our pokémon out with us." I end up letting Mandy out and having her sit on my shoulder. It probably won't be long before she runs off chasing after some small bug, but she can move faster than Kiki, and Cassie would probably just get lost in the grass and sit there eating dirt or something. "Maybe your tropius?" I still don't trust audino after what Ali said about them and their itchy, scratching out their eyes disease. "Zubat sleep during the day, don't they? We should have that around us at night."

"Okay." I'm surprised how quickly she agrees. I'm never normally the one making decisions. "But I have to train my zubat as well, so I might let him out during the day until I can trust him at night." She lets out the tropius and Mandy squeaks at the size of the thing that emerges.

"I thought you said it was only as tall as you?" That thing is taller than me by at least another head - and Li's only _just_ taller than me. My neck hurts from having to look up at it. Bananas dangle from its chin. I'm kinda jealous – I want my own banana dragon-plant-thing.

"She was . . . a few days ago. Tropius grow fast." Li reaches up and scratches the tropius' neck. The grunting sound she makes is kinda funny. Even as Li scratches her neck, the tropius doesn't really pay her much attention. I get the feeling that if Diz was around, I'd hear her voice in my head with something like, _'It seems you are useful for something. I may even pay attention to you soon.'_

A pidgey coos from the branches above us and suddenly the tropius spreads her wings. They're easily about half my height. I half-expect her to just reach up with her really long neck and snap the pidgey up. Instead she just growls and frightens it away.

"At least she'll scare away anything small." I'm tempted to poke her on the side to see if that gains her attention. "What's her name?" I want to call her Miss Squishes-Small-Monsters. Squishy for short.

"Her name's Q- Autumn."

"Quartem?" Understandably I'm confused. What does it even mean?

"No, just Autumn." The tropius doesn't even seem to respond to that name. She's all snooty and paying no attention to us. She doesn't even blink as Mandy spreads her wings and caws at her. "It's what she's called in English. Since everyone has a hard enough time saying my name, I thought it would be better to give all of my pokémon two names, just in case. Her real name is Qiu." The tropius actually perks up a little at that. She doesn't move much, but her eyes have rolled back to watch Li.

"Oh. Okay then." What else do I really say to that? "Let's go." I start wading my way in through the grass, kicking it first and making sure I'm not stepping on anything. Li follows my lead and we're both swarmed by little tiny bugs within moments of setting foot in the grass. Autumn, Qiu or whatever Li wants to call her tropius just growls at everything and usually that's enough to scare things away. A curious weedle ends ups as Mandy's snack.

I'm almost disappointed that there aren't any random log cabins covered in fog, hidden between the trees. It would actually make this interesting. A spearow screeches at us as we pass under its nest. Li shrieks and it makes the spearow screech at us even louder.

"Sorry," she says as we move away from it. I'm fairly certain that whatever Mandy's trilling at it is something Kiki would attack me for. "It's just that it was near here that the ursaring started tracking us."

"Oh." I look around and can't seem to see any big pokémon tracks. All I can see are slashes in the trees that are probably from a scyther or something. "Why did you come back to Pewter if you were already going through here?"

She shrugs. "We thought that we'd hang back and train for a little while longer. But then Toby told us that he'd bumped into you and that you had two badges already. Our ship docked in Vermilion and then we took an express train to Pewter. Between the three of us, we've been able to fight off anything that attacked us so far. The ursaring was the first thing that actually managed to fight us off."

"That's stupid," I say. Li actually looks shocked, for whatever reason. I thought she was smart? "You want to be a pokémon doctor, right? What happens if you're out somewhere treating something and then a big dragon comes along and tries to eat you?"

"I'd have a team of people with me. It's their job to protect me."

I just stare at her. Maybe if I stare for long enough she'll realise how stupid she's being. "So . . . Toby just catches the first thing he sees in every new place and you don't think you need to train because other people will get paid to look after you. Andy's actually the smartest out of all three of you."

"_Excuse me_?" Li manages to turn red in the time it takes me to blink. Her tropius looks down at us, seems to shrug and then continues to try and catch the sunlight that filters through the trees. "I'll have you know that in _every_ test in school I beat all of you! Andy failed almost everything – he's that stupid that being a trainer was the only thing on his intellectual level!"

"You can't learn everything in school." Oh god, now I sound like my parents. How many times have I heard this exact speech? Even Jerry started saying it when he came back to visit after leaving to be a trainer. I'm starting to talk like an _old_ person. "What I mean is that my parents are trainers. My brother's one. They always told me that the course we did in school was useless. Maybe fiery pokémon are weak to aquatic ones, but there's so much that can change the outcome of that battle. It's like a sewaddle about to be eaten by a pidove – the sewaddle might be at a horrible disadvantage, but it can cover the pidove in silk until it can't move. Andy tried to put the ursaring to sleep instead of battling it when he realised you guys couldn't fight it off."

"I know pokémon battling strategies – I scored the highest marks in that test, remember?" Oh god, how did I never realise how annoying she could be before? I should have gone with Andy and fought off vileplume. At least I can have Mandy pull out their tongues without adults judging me. "The easiest way to deal with an opponent is to knock them out before they can harm you."

I sigh. Clearly this is going to take longer than I thought. I glance around and see that there's not even a log, a broken tree or a big rock to sit on. "Let me set my pokémon up to train a little," I tell her. "There's so much wrong with what you've thought that I don't even know where to start."

Li watches me in silence as I release Kiki and have her root herself to the spot. I go through the usual pattern of marking out targets for her to attack, but this time I have Mandy sat in the tree, cloaking as much of it as she can in darkness. I want to see if Kiki can attack the shapes I want her to, but without being able to see them. Her glares are a constant, but that's nothing new. I'm fairly certain that if she had a baby and I gave it to her to hold, she'd stand there glaring at it until it stopped crying.

When everything is set up, I turn around to find Li sat down in the grass, leaning against her tropius and with a tablet shining against her face. She looks up at me, frowns and glances back down at her screen.

"My book says that the training you've set up is a waste of time," she says without even looking at me. "Have you even read anything written by Erika? She's one of the best experts on nature-controlling pokémon."

"She's an expert in general, not on the specific pokémon. If I wanted to read on how to train Kiki, I'd use a book that focused on maractus and cacturne. I can't train Mandy and Kiki in the same way because they're totally different pokémon. Mandy can fly and I'm pretty sure Kiki can't." Li scowls at me for all my efforts. "You haven't fought any gym battles yet, so you don't know how they test you. Roark's was special because of my school, but in Pewter I couldn't just let out Kiki and have her attack everything non-stop. They had ways of stopping me from doing that."

"Well then I submit myself to your knowledge. Obviously fighting two gym leaders with rocky pokémon left you and your maractus at such a _horrible_ disadvantage."

Oh my god I hope your tropius sits on you when you're asleep and squashes you to death. "Fine, whatever. I'm gonna go train my pokémon. If you want to leave and travel through the forest on your own while I'm training, feel free." And hopefully you get stung in the butt by a beedrill on the way.

**-O-O-O-**

I'm woken from my dreams of Andy and Li dangling above a pit of lava by a blast of cold air on my face. I wake up screaming, only to find Cassie's face in mine, a big smile on her face.

Kiki mutters something from by my side. I'm not even awake enough to process how she managed to find Cassie's ball and activate it. Kiki points out of the tent and I begin to hear the voices growing louder. My breath catches and my heart races. I didn't mean it when I hoped for axe murderers to come after Li! If they see her tent next to mine they might take me too!

I open my tent, my hands shaking, and have Kiki and Cassie follow me out. I need to get a bat or something. Instead I just pick up one of the pans from the remains of our campfire and get ready to swing it.

Li pokes her head out of her own tent. Her audino looks just as sleepy as I feel. I motion for them to stay quiet and whisper for Kiki to find out who's coming. Instead she just gives me a flat look. I'm just whack her with the pan when Andy's face appears from the bushes, worn out and bloody.

"Andy?" I can't quite believe that it's him. How did he even find us? He looks frightened at the sound of my voice. Li suddenly bursts out of her tent, shrieking at him in a language I can't quite understand. Andy doesn't say anything, instead just collapsing by the side of our dead fire.

I'm just about to ask where Toby is when he bursts out of the bushes, his eyes bright red. He sees me, Li and Andy and practically falls to the floor, mumbling nonsense. The only thing I manage to make out is, 'They're dead' before he goes quiet.

Cassie sings and dances around everyone. I recall her before starting our fire again. I wonder which one of them I should hit with the pans first for being such idiots. Andy has his backpack between his legs, hugging it as if it's the only thing keeping him alive anymore. Li is sat next to Toby, trying to offer him a mug of lukewarm chocolate. Her audino bounces around everyone, eyes bright and afraid.

"What happened?" I ask Andy. He doesn't look at me; instead he just stares at the fire as if it holds the mysteries to life.

Li says something to Toby and he crawls into her tent, zips it up behind him and leaves us completely in the dark. Li sits on the other side of the fire and stares at Andy, waiting for answers.

"His pokémon died," Andy finally says. "Three of them. His pidove, caterpie and rattata."

Li gasps, her hands going to her mouth. I have to stop myself from smugly proclaiming how right I was. He should have trained them more.

"How?" Li whispers.

"We thought we'd track the ursaring that was after us. We were going to try and capture it. But it was too strong for us."

"You wanted to try and capture a pokémon that managed to chase off all three of you at once?"

"Well wouldn't you?"

Okay, good point.

"Do you realise what could have happened to you? We could be searching for your broken bodies right now!" Li's voice is more like a feral hiss than anything else. "You shouldn't capture pokémon above your ability to train! Every book even says –"

"Well how else are we meant to get stronger as trainers?" The firelight makes the shadows in Andy's face more pronounced. It makes him look like something out of a psycho-killer film. "Unless we challenge ourselves, we're not actually improving, and neither are our pokémon. It's just like moving onto a more advanced subject to study. Surely your books have taught you _that_?"

Li's mouth opens and shuts a few times, but no sound comes out. Finally she turns around, asks me if I can use my tent and storms in there before I've begun to agree.

"I don't know how you've put up with her," Andy growls. "I've tried to tell her that pokémon battling isn't something you can just recite from a book. She doesn't listen to me."

"Me either." Kiki stands behind us, far enough away from the fire to not feel the heat. But I can feel her eyes occasionally sweeping over me, almost as if she's waiting to attack Andy. "She totally went crazy when I said you were smarter than her for trying to put the ursaring to sleep instead of fighting it. If she did so well in all those tests in school, why doesn't she do stuff like that now?"

"Because so far everything we've been able to just brute force our way through everything." He shrugs, picks up a stick on the floor and begins poking it into the fire. "You really told her I was smarter than her?"

"Well yeah, it's true. Why?"

"Because I was always the stupid one in school. I failed almost every test I ever took, but I've always been better at training pokémon. I can't do tests, but when I'm out here, I actually understand everything." He pulls a poké ball from his belt and turns it over in his hand. "It's why my parents bought me an oddish instead of an Unovan pokémon. They said that I was smart enough to start without a native pokémon, and one that requires strategy. The normal starters that the government give out are usually strong enough to brute force their way through everything." He takes another poké ball and juggles them slowly. "It's why I got so annoyed with you and Craig. You had these pokémon that required intelligence to use, but you both always seemed so disinterested in them."

I don't say anything for a moment. The crackle of the fire is our only company against the sounds of hoothoot and the buzzing of bugs. "I wasn't ever really disinterested," I say, aware that Kiki is within earshot, "just more . . . annoyed? I never wanted a pokémon in the first place, but then they gave me Kiki. Suddenly I had all this responsibility when all I wanted to do was study history. I know they gave her to me so that I had something to protect me against feral pokémon, but I always felt like it was them trying to push me into being a trainer like my brother."

"What changed your mind?"

I shrug. "I guess I saw my brother come back a couple of times with strong pokémon and I wanted to beat him. But because it was always my parents telling me when to train and how to do it, I got even more annoyed with everything. It was only when I left and had only Kiki to rely on that I really started to realise things. Everything my parents and my brother had ever told me started to make a bit more sense."

Silence cloaks us again. Finally Andy breaks it by saying, "I didn't mean to argue with you earlier." I look up at him and he continues, "But I was just upset that I'd forgotten to buy antidotes in Pewter. My oddish is naturally poisonous and I have a munchlax – all of them are immune to poison anyway. There's stuff that grows naturally in here that you can use against poison anyway."

"It's alright. I just wanted to get as much as possible because Kiki's so vulnerable to poisonous creatures. I forgot about being able to collect pecha berries and stuff like that."

He smiles at me. "Maybe we should start making sure we know everything before we go somewhere. It might stop us arguing with each other again."

"Maybe. You think Toby's going to be okay?"

"I don't know. Since he keeps catching new things every time we go somewhere new, I thought that he wouldn't be upset when one died. It's not like he's taking his time training them, after all." He hugs his backpack again. "I feel bad now. I didn't think this would happen and that he'd get this upset."

I look over my shoulder and find Kiki still stood there, waiting for something to happen. "So how did you escape that ursaring then? You looked like you'd been running for ages."

He shrugs. "I don't know. We were running this way and then suddenly it just stopped following us. We thought it was planning something, so we carried on running until we found you guys. I'm surprised you managed to find such a quiet little spot in this place. Everywhere else has been crawling with pokémon."

"Yeah, when we saw how quiet it was around here, we thought we'd set up camp here. It's nice not to wake up every hour with the sounds of something being eaten outside your tent."

"And now Li's stolen yours anyway." He reaches into his backpack and starts pulling things out. "I've got a spare sleeping bag if you want to share my tent? It's safer than sleeping out here."

I can't help but think of the school camping trips and the way that they'd always make boys sleep in separate tents to girls. "Okay," I say, "but I'm keeping Kiki out. She has this thing about having to be in my tent."

The evil look she settles Andy with is enough to frighten gastly. I don't doubt that she's going to stay awake all night, looming over his sleeping bag and stopping him from sleeping.

**-O-O-O-**

When I wake up in the morning, I spend the first couple of moments without any memory at all of the night before. Then as it all comes back to me, I freeze and remain hidden in the comfort of Andy's spare sleeping bag. I don't want to move from it. It seems weird that we're sharing a tent. I can hear him starting to wake up and it makes me want to zip my sleeping bag up and hide within.

It's only when Kiki essentially slaps me that I decide to move out of my sleeping bag. Sunlight is creeping in through the cracks in Andy's tent. I wonder just how early it is, considering I can't hear Li or Toby yet.

I open the tent as quietly as I can and step outside. When I do, I'm convinced that I'm still asleep.

"Andy," I say, shaking the tent without looking away. "Get up. Now."

He groans something I don't quite hear. I'm too distracted to ask what he actually said. "What?" he snaps as he sticks his head out of the tent. When he sees it too, he nearly falls out of the tent in shock.

Because all the trees around us are covered in spider webs.

"How did this happen?" Andy whispers. "Wouldn't we have heard it? Wouldn't our pokémon?"

"Kiki's not a guard dog," I say defensively. "We should wake the others up and get our pokémon out. I don't think these are galvantula webs."

"They'll be ariados." I'm not even sure what one of those are until Andy says, "They're bigger than us and poisonous."

Oh great. I let out Mandy and Cassie as he lets out all three of his pokémon. As Li and Toby get up, freak out about the spider webs and release all their pokémon to defend us, I realise something that's not going in our favour.

We don't have a single fiery pokémon between us.

"Please tell me your munchlax can breathe fire," I say to Andy. Our backs are all pressed together. I can feel Li trembling against me. Her zubat flits around us, herded into place by Mandy. Toby's muttering something about how he doesn't want any more of his pokémon to die. He's only got a venipede and a bellsprout to help defend us.

"I've only just thought about teaching him it." A shinx kitten sits by Andy's feet. I don't think it even understands just what's waiting for us behind all those cobwebs. It just looks like it wants to sit there batting the webs and chasing them like a massive ball of yarn. "Why haven't they attacked yet?"

"They're waiting," Li says. "Ariados attack in swarms. They'll have waited for us to leave our tents and release all our pokémon, so they know how many of us they've got to face. They'll coordinate their attack and then when they're ready, they'll come at us all at once." She glances back at Andy and I. "Books are useful for something."

"Unless you've got one big enough to squash all the spiders that are about to eat us, stop talking about your books. In fact –"

Something wet _splats_ in Andy's face. I scream as loudly as Li as something thick and white wraps around Andy's face and suddenly, he's pulled into the air. His legs kick and flail and then suddenly he's stuck to the webs above us, his pokémon on the ground and panicking.

"Toby!" I see Li just in time as she jumps up and grabs Toby by the ankles. He screams as the webs wrap around his chest and pull him harder and harder until finally Li can't hold on anymore. I grab after him but he moves too fast and suddenly he's stuck to the trees too and the ariados are going to be coming for me or Li next and –

Something hits me in the back with enough force to make me lose my breath. I have just enough time to make the connection and see Li's eyes widen before the ground disappears and my legs are touching nothing but sky and something wet sticks to the back of my neck and I can't move and –

There's a clicking sound above me.

I look up and instantly wish I hadn't. Thick, hairy insect legs are crawling towards my head. The ariados' eyes all focus on me. Its fangs are dripping something purple and foul.

Mandy shrieks from nearby. I see her flapping wildly, beating two ariados away at once. A third comes after her and sinks its fangs into her back. She screams and carries on fighting until they swarm her and I can't see her anymore. One of the ariados screams, missing its eyes. The two cover the space it leaves and suddenly I can't hear Mandy anymore.

_She's not dead._ The thought of the ariados above me vanishes under my mantra. _She's not allowed to be dead. _The sounds of battle on the ground are almost distant. I'm sure that a few needles smack against the webs around my chest. The ariados above me hisses and I hear screams that can only have come from Kiki.

_This is all Diz's fault._ The hypno tricked me. I flinch away from the thought and the ariados both. He told me I'd have an opportunity I wouldn't want to miss. The damn stupid thing set me up to die, just so he can get his own way!

Kicking and struggling against the webs doesn't do anything. The ariados seems to find my attempts of escape funny. I want to punch it in its stupid face. I want Diz here to smite the bug and then let me feed him to one of them.

"Get away from me!" It doesn't obey. In fact it only comes closer, fangs dripping more venom. I feel the webs around me begin to bounce. I look and see another ariados approaching, spinning silk between its legs. More and more wraps around my chest until it's hard to breathe. _This is where Diz and Jerry show up to save me._

They don't appear. Diz has left me to die and Jerry thinks that I'm going to be fine and then they're going to find my shrivelled up, drained corpse still stuck to these stupid webs!

_Mandy's going to evolve and save me. _She doesn't. The ariados' fangs come closer. _Cassie's going to appear in the trees and freeze them to death. _She doesn't. Dad's going to show up with his kadabra and kill all of the ariados to save me. He doesn't.

The ariados sinks its fangs into my neck.

I scream as something white and hot burns into my neck and down my chest. Something feels like its crushing my lungs. The ariados blurs into three and four and five giant, yellow and green and orange and fifteen legged and the sun begins to sing as the trees sway and grow arms and dance.

_Beel was right_, I realise as the fire-spitting moth dances until everything goes black.


	18. Interlude

_**Pokémon**_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Interlude|<strong>

**\**_Kiki_**/**

**-O-O-O-**

The moment her trainer disappears into the treetops, Kiki's world stops. She sees everything in slow motion; her trainer being dragged away from her, mouth open wide and screaming, but no sound coming out. She sees the giant bugs behind her trainer, waiting atop their webs, fangs glistening and dripping venom. Her trainer is screaming for her to help, yet all she can do is stare in abject horror as everything happens too fast and yet too slow at the same time.

The bird is the first one into action. _"Give her back!"_ Her screeches do nothing to faze the ariados. They snap Kiki back to attention. She won't lose her trainer. She's spent too long and tried to teach her far too much to lose her. Her word hangs in the balance. She promised that she would always look out for her.

Sharp clicking sounds from behind her. Kiki jumps, spins and slams her arms down into the offending insect. Its head _crunches_. Carapace flattens and breaks, yet the insect remains alive and moving. Pain dances over her arms. The bug traps her in sticky webs that cling to her needles and make it impossible to move.

The bug makes a taunting sound at her. She can't understand it. She doesn't need to. All she needs is to kill it and get her trainer back.

She fires seeds from the flowers atop her head. The bug screeches as vines sprout from them and wrap around it, sneaking between its segments, draining its air and life away. She doesn't wait to watch it die. She takes a deep breath and fires needles from every pore she can. The webs trapping her split. Her trainer screams as some of them fly near her. Kiki winces, reminds herself that screaming means she's still alive.

Then the bird is attacked by a swarm of them and disappears beneath a cocoon.

_She can't be dead._ Kiki won't believe that the bird is dead until she sees her corpse with her own two eyes. The thing is too annoying to die. Giratina itself would kick it out of the spirit realm and back to the living, simply for a moment's peace.

"_So many minds, clicky, clicky, clicky, all with one purpose."_

The snorunt is spouting nonsense again. Thankfully she does so whilst fending off another bug. There's no way that Kiki can get to her trainer in time. She scowls at the ariados that surround them. She sees the spinarak they hide beneath their stomachs, waiting for the order to attack. She narrows her eyes at them all and promises them that their death will be painful.

The blind not-woobat goes down screaming in an ariados' mouth. Its shrieks make her dizzy until it mercifully dies. The little electric not-purrloin chases after a few spinarak until Kiki loses sight of it. It's either fled for its life or already dead. She doesn't care about it – it's not her trainer.

She covers the ground around her in spikes and floods the air around her with thick, sticky cotton balls. The bugs screech in annoyance as they try to attack her through it all. She tracks them by the sound and beats their bodies until they break and bleed. Pain becomes meaningless to her. She'll save her trainer no matter the cost. Every spare moment she gets, she fires exploding seeds into the trees. Ariados drop from the sky like terrifying rain. Most catch themselves before they land, spitting silk from both ends. Some are not so lucky.

"_Are you not going to help?"_ The plant-dragon stands, apathetic to the carnage around it. Its only efforts to battle are to stomp and squash on the spinarak that try to swarm it. Even the annoying snorunt chases after the ariados, chanting insanity as it freezes them solid. The venipede and the fat creature follow after her, breaking the frozen bugs into tiny pieces.

"_. . . why?" _It gives her a bored look and slams both forelegs into the ground. Kiki has to set roots to stay upright. If anything it seems to aid the spinarak more than it does hinder them. _"They're out of my reach now anyway."_

"_You can _fly_!"_

"_. . . so?"_

Kiki snarls and spins away from the useless thing. An ariados leaps at her, fangs dripping venom. She floods its throat with thick cotton balls. It chokes to death, but not before it sinks its fangs into her flesh and floods her with venom.

Her trainer screams from above. The world slows once more as the ariados sinks its fangs into her trainer's throat. The volcarona dances nearby, spitting flames over the webs as it passes them. Kiki tries to aim and fire at the ariados that bit her trainer. The bug scuttles out of the way of each of her shorts. Her vision wavers and spins. She feels the venom coursing through her, shutting off her nervous system. The snorunt racing across the webs to free the stupid bird has to be a hallucination. She was on the ground moments ago, firing shards of ice into spinarak brains.

Something lands on her back. She's surprised to see it's the audino and is even more surprised that it's survived so long. It chitters something and Kiki sees the wounds over her stomach heal a little faster. Her vision seems a little clearer and she breathes a little easier. The audino bounces off her before she can thank it and charges its way through a swarm of spinarak. It doesn't seem to do much other than get their attention. They chase after it, screeching between themselves and straight into the path of the volcarona.

Kiki's certain the volcarona is cackling as it roasts insects alive. Somehow it knows just who to attack and who not to. It spits sticky string over the ariados that catches fire as soon as it latches onto them. Their screams are like music to her ears.

She spins at a harsh buzzing and finds herself staring at a familiar green insect. It regards her with bright blue eyes, hisses something and then darts over her, spearing a spinarak on its stingers.

Human sounds draw her attention. She sees one crouched down beside multiple cocoons. Whoever they are pulls all the sticky string off of the faces of some of her trainer's friends. When the human's hands go towards their pockets, Kiki hisses and goes to attack. The green beedrill blocks her way, buzzing something insistently.

"_We're here to help,"_ the volcarona translates. _"Watch."_

The human finds poké balls on each of them and starts recalling everything he can see or find. He points them at the cocoons and manages to recall one or two. Kiki hopes the bird is one of them. When he points one towards her, she hisses, grabs the beedrill and places it in the way. It shrieks as the stunning beam hits it, drops to the floor and makes sounds of protest.

The human looks at her and says something she can't quite understand. She doesn't care what they have to say.

"_I'm not leaving my trainer alone with you." _She flexes her arms, prepared for a fight if she needs one. The human seems to understand and lets her pass by the bugs blocking her from her trainer.

When she reaches her, Kiki's certain she's dead. She's so pale, her lips are nearly purple and heavy sweat makes her hair stick to her head. Kiki touches her trainer's head gently. _"I'll make you better,"_ she promises.

The human says something and produces a pouch of water. They drop powder into the water and Kiki hears the way it hisses and fizzes. The smell of it sticks to the air and leaves a bad taste in the back of her mouth. As soon as the human goes to try and touch her trainer, Kiki steps in protectively.

"_I will make her better,"_ she growls. _"I do not trust you with her safety, let alone her life."_

The human makes a face at her and says something to the volcarona. It doesn't translate this time. Instead it begins to spit fire. Kiki hisses and floods the space between them with balls of cotton. It takes the edge off of the fire, but she still gets burnt. She can smell the flowers on her head burning as she fires needles at the bug. It flaps its wings and dodges, moving far faster than it has any right to. It dodges each time she fires. When it comes in close to attack, Kiki launches herself at it with every method she can think of. She scratches it, beats it and smashes her head into its face. It seems to shrug off everything she does to it before it latches onto her and holds her tight.

No matter what Kiki does, she can't escape. She's certain the volcarona says, _"We're only trying to help." _Before she can find out just how, the beedrill darts behind her, brings its stingers down on her head hard and sends her straight into the waiting grip of unconsciousness.


	19. Darwinian

_Dear Diary,_

_The Historian has taught me much. _

'_The first pokémon made the Dialga, Palkia and Giratina. It helped create and forge the world into the shape we see today, eventually giving up its power and sharing it amongst its children. To fully pass over its power, it formed a contest of strength between pokémon – whoever could rise to the top and defeat it would claim its power for as long as they could hold it._

'_Many tried and many were defeated. Eventually one was successful. The power passed over, as it does every millennia, even now. Arceus is just the latest on a long line of powerful pokémon that fought for and claimed the power of a god.'_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Darwinian|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

My neck hurts.

It's like a constant, throbbing pain that just won't shut up, go away and leave me to sleep. I'm sure that at one point I wake up and something horrible and bubbly gets shoved down my throat. I might be dreaming. It might actually be happening. I'm not sure. All I know is that the world is spinning with shades of red and green and sometimes the fire-spitting moth is there, fluttering happily and vomiting flames over the monsters in the dark.

I'm sure someone calls my name, screams something to someone else and then people run around like headless combusken. Someone mutters something in words I can't understand.

Finally my eyes decide they've had enough darkness.

The light of the fire nearly blinds me when I open my eyes. I groan, find my throat as dry as a desert and cough as it feels like sand trickles down my throat and into my lungs. Every breath makes my neck hurt. It _pulses_ with every beat of my heart. I'm convinced that I'm going to die, here by the fire, with nothing but a sandy throat and a vampire bite on my neck.

Someone places a bottle to my lips. I don't think about what might be in there. I drink, coughing as it stabs the back of my throat with some sort of unholy pain. I have to have died. I must be in some eternal punishment place like the Distortion World if even drinking feels like someone is knifing me in the neck.

"Calmly," a mystery voice says. "How are you feeling? Headache? Blurred vision? Can you feel everything below your neck?"

So many questions. My head swims and I feel like I'm going to be sick. I burp and little comes up, swishes over my tongue and then retreats back into my stomach. _So gross. _"My head hurts." Speaking hurts my throat. I sound like Roark did after his neck got cut open. The memory of all the blood there, bright and red, makes me think of ariados crawling around, lapping up the blood as it flows from his neck with tongues like stoutland. "My neck really hurts."

I go to scratch it and something catches my arm. "Don't do that," the voice says again. My eyes are still blinded by the fire. I can't see much - just a shape. I wonder where my pokémon are before the voice says, "If you scratch it, you might dislodge some poison that I might not have reached. If that happens, you'll pass out again." I drop my hand quite quickly after that. "Plus it will make the scar worse."

I don't have the energy to mention I'm not bothered about scars. Every trainer I know has some. At least I'll be able to claim I'm officially one of them, now I've got this big scar on my neck. I wonder what Jerry's reaction to it will be and suddenly my stomach drops at the thought of him finding out about all of this.

"My brother," I say. "Did someone tell him?"

The figure shakes their head. My eyes are slowly clearing. Whoever they are, they're older than Jerry. "We haven't used your phone – I didn't know the password to unlock it. You've been out for nearly six days now."

"Why am I not in hospital then?"

"Because teleportation when you've been poisoned can be extremely dangerous. The act of teleportation might cause the poison to spread faster than it did before, move it to a different organ or even amplify its effects." He hands me another bottle. "Take this. It's another dose of anti-venom."

I stare at it. The fire light makes it look all green an ominous. "How did you get this?"

"I killed the ariados that bit you and made it from its poison glands."

That sounds complicated. I swish the liquid around and wonder if it's safe to drink. I haven't seen my pokémon, my friends or anyone else, but surely if this person wanted to do something to me, they'd have done it already? I woke up, so that must mean they're not a total crazy axe-murderer.

The drink tastes horrible. I recognise it as the thing that I was forced to drink when I was sleeping. "Thanks, mister -?"

"Pascal." He takes the bottle back off of me. My eyes finally stop blurring and I'm convinced I'm totally in a hell dimension.

Because Pascal is the guy with the green beedrill that wanted all my money.

Darkness claims me before I can even gasp in shock.

**-O-O-O-**

When I wake up again, I find a bright orange sheet of fabric fluttering over my head. It takes me almost a minute to realise I must be in a tent before the flap opens and Pascal drops his head in.

"Ah," he says, smiling a little. "You're awake again. Feeling better?"

I shrink away from him. "A little. Why? Are you plotting some sort of revenge for what I did to you in Unova?"

His smile doesn't go. "That? No, don't worry about it. I was in a bad mood that day - I had been hunting a pokémon for five days and it had only just eluded me. I suppose I was taking my frustration out on you. Many people I know would have been a lot less kind than you were."

_But I kicked you in the balls._ What's unkinder than that? "Where are my pokémon?" I ask instead. "And my friends?"

"Your friends are still unconscious," he says. He places his hand against my forehead before I can move away. "Your pokémon are in their balls. I couldn't help any of you whilst they were out - they all tried to attack me continuously. I had to knock all of them out to try and treat you all. I recognised the maractus, as it so happens. It's gotten a lot stronger - it put up quite a fight this time."

"Yeah, well, good." I don't say anything as he sticks a thermometer in my mouth and counts the seconds on his watch. "Can I see them?" I ask when I can speak again.

"As long as you can walk to them, sure. They're all in my tent - I don't know what one is what, but you'll have to figure that out yourself."

"And why can't you get them for me?"

He looks like he's stopping himself from rolling his eyes. "Because your three friends haven't yet woken up and I need to make certain they're okay. The girl seems to be fine - she got bitten by some spinarak and should wake soon, hopefully. Out of the two boys, one had already stopped breathing by the time I found him. The ariados had bound him by the face? I brought him back, but I also managed to break one or two of his ribs in doing so. The other boy might be alright, he might not. I'm not a doctor - you're all lucky I know what I know. _En plus_, we need to be certain that your legs are actually working. The only way to do that is to have you actually walk."

"Alright." I go to struggle back to my feet. Memories of Mandy disappearing beneath the swarm of ariados makes my tummy flip. "What about my vullaby? Did you manage to recall her too?"

His face is a perfect mask. "I never saw a vullaby. There were a few pokémon entombed in silk by the time I arrived. I recalled them all and treated them the best I could through their poké balls. Sorry, _mais_ that is all I know."

I stumble out of the tent after finding out just what one I'm meant to find. Five tents sit around a fire pit. I can see the green beedrill flying around, making sure that we're all safe. Some part of my mind says that I should find out if everyone else is alright, but my pokémon are more important. I need to find out if Mandy is –

I can't finish the thought without a lump in my throat forming. I swallow and take as many breaths as it takes to calm myself. My hands still shake as I peel open Pascal's tent leaf-green tent and find a pile of poké balls waiting inside. The fire spitting moth is in there, sitting atop a bird perch, watching me silently. Its presence stops me from diving into the poké ball pile and throwing everything aside to find mine.

Kiki, Cassie and Mandy. Their poké balls are all here, familiar in my hands, marked out by my quick scribbles and crude drawings of what they look like. They're still bright and red, which has to mean they're still alive. My arms tremble enough that I nearly drop everything on the floor. The moth remains silent as I stumble out of the tent and to the campfire.

I nearly drop everything again as I try and select which poké ball to activate. Kiki comes first. I can't see if Mandy's still alive yet. The others should be fine. With them around, I'll have the strength to see if Mandy's a corpse or not.

Against everything I think is possible, when Kiki sees me, she actually tries to hug me. I do my best at returning the hug and not catching myself on all her needles. Finally she pulls away, hissing and doubtlessly telling me how stupid I am. I don't care. I just laugh because I'm so happy to see that she's alright. She's covered in cuts and bruises and I'm pretty sure she's missing a small bit of flesh from her chest, but it doesn't matter because she's alive and not currently in the stomach of some creepy bug.

Cassie comes next. She stares at me, smiles and then dances around the pile of logs in the fire pit, blowing frost into the air.

When I let Mandy out, I can't open my eyes at first. I don't hear any familiar screeches or feel anything flying around my head. My heart plummets and my vision goes blurry, even behind my hands. _She can't be dead._ Yet there's no sound from her. I peel my hands away from my eyes and see her tiny little body, sprawled out on the floor, motionless.

"M-Mandy?" Kiki's not moved towards her. Even Cassie's stopped her dancing and stares solemnly at her. "Mandy?"

With a sudden squawk, Mandy leaps to her feet and tackles me. Words don't come to me. Kiki hisses something that has to be relief. Cassie chortles and covers the air in a thin, cold mist. Mandy fluffs herself up against my stomach, tweeting something as she nips at my clothes. I don't care even when she manages to pinch me a couple of times because she's here and she's breathing and I thought I lost her because all the ariados –

The sound of Kiki growling makes me wipe my eyes free of tears. She throws herself at Pascal, hissing and spitting, waving her arms and aiming straight for his head.

"Kiki!" I cry, jumping up without letting go of Mandy. "Stop!" The beedrill has put itself between Kiki and Pascal, buzzing furiously as Kiki tries to make her way past it. I fumble around on the floor and manage to find Kiki's poké ball and return her before she does anything more serious than putting a few holes in one of the tents.

The beedrill looks at me in a way that makes Mandy fidget restlessly in my arms. "Sorry," I say, both to it and Pascal. "I didn't think she'd do that."

"Don't worry about it." The moth is poking its head out of Pascal's tent, constantly looking between him and me. "I had my pokémon knock out your maractus so that I could try and treat you. It isn't surprising to find she bears some resentment towards me for that. Though it is good to see your pokémon are also fine."

He disappears into a dark blue tent before I can say anything else. His moth returns back to his tent as his beedrill takes to the sky again and starts circling once more.

"_How pleasant to see that you have survived, Darling."_

"Diz!" I spin around and find him standing behind me, clad in a bright green jacket and a yellow fur scarf. Even the sight of that isn't enough to stop me almost wanting to hug him. "Where were you? I thought you were meant to be protecting me and instead I nearly got eaten!"

He rolls his eyes at me. _"What, you think me so woefully incompetent? Who do you think formed a psychic air pocket around your vullaby? Who do you think altered the thoughts of another person so that they could arrive here just in time to save you? Who do you think gave him the knowledge of how to prepare an anti-venom for an ariados bite, as well as point out to him which ariados had bitten you?"_

I definitely wasn't expecting that answer. "But, you weren't _here!_ When you said that you were meant to look out for me, I thought that you'd come when there was trouble!"

"_Darling . . ." _There's something in the way he looks at me that makes me suddenly afraid. _"What makes you think I would spend my whole life following after you? Make no mistake; I am here to protect you. But I am not here to allow you to commit acts of _extreme_ stupidity and not learn from them. Remember what Beel told you; the world will not twist its laws to keep you alive. If you die, a replacement may be made. We are not even certain how you are connected to these deaths._

"_Allow me to explain; if we discover that you do not need to be fully aware to still be part of these plans and if you continue to act so stupidly, I will happily render you nothing more than a vegetable and simply have you around to witness these deaths. If you must be spiritually around, I will trap you in your own body so that you comply. You should be thankful we allow you to live a normal life. There are many who argue it would be easier to simply keep you as a hostage."_

He vanishes in a flash of blue light. A sudden feeling of cold grows through me. I feel like something's watching me, hanging around in my shadow and waiting for a brilliant moment to strike.

"_The world will not save you from your own stupidity, Darling. You've already used up your free pass. Unless I'm with you, you're on your own."_

Cassie hisses at the spot Diz occupied. Mandy doesn't say anything, but she nips my ear affectionately. I can't manage much more than staring at the empty space Diz left behind.

"Seen a pokémon you like?" I practically jump out of my skin at Pascal's voice. He emerges from his tent, frowning as if he's forgotten why he went in there in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised if Diz had something to do with that too.

"No," I say. "Just . . . I thought I saw someone I knew is all."

"In that case, don't go off chasing after them. It may be a side effect of the toxins the ariados injected you with."

I say nothing to that. Cassie pokes her head in each tent and chitters something before finally sitting down outside mine and staring into space. Mandy watches her with as much confusion as I do. Finally she decides she's had enough and takes to the sky, following after the green beedrill.

"Are you like a bug trainer or something?" I ask without meaning to. "I remember the beedrill from last time and you've got a volcarona too."

"Ah, _non_, not quite." He squats by the extinguished fire and begins to try and light it again. "I'm a pokémon hunter. I search for rare and powerful pokémon. Most of the time I get paid to do it, _mais_ occasionally I do search for something strong for myself. After all, I need a team of strong pokémon to hunt for other strong pokémon, _non_? I came across Arthur nearly ten years ago, here in this very forest. It was two years before I was allowed to leave on a pokémon journey, but we stuck by each other's sides _et _we are still together now. The volcarona is named Robin. I searched for him for nearly six months through the deserts in Unova."

"Six months?" I haven't even been travelling for that long yet. Six months tracking down just one pokémon? Sure volcarona are strong – I'm pretty sure everyone in Unova knows about Alder and his – but _six months_?

Pascal laughs. _"Oui, six mois._" Finally the sparks from his flint make the fire catch. As he blows on it to make it bigger, his volcarona flutters out of the tent and hovers nearby it, staring into the flames as if it's going to try and see the future or something. Or maybe it's even just impressed that people can make fire with pieces of rock whilst it can just naturally breathe it.

"Now, I must ask you a question," he says. "_Si vous plait, _which one of you was so stupid as to choose your campsite?"

"I-what?" Just because he's saved my life doesn't give him the right to try and speak like that. Jerk. "It was Li and I. But we weren't really paying attention to where we were going because we were arguing about how to train pokémon and she's stupid because all she does is read from books and think they give the best analysis of everything."

"And if you had read more, you would have remembered that when the forest grows still and you see no life around you, it is wiser to move on and make camp elsewhere. You and your friend made camp in the middle of an ariados nest. Did you not see the dead pokémon entombed in silk as you walked in? They dangled from the trees – they were hard to miss."

"No . . ." I say to the floor. "But it wasn't my fault!"

"I'm not placing blame," Pascal says, sighing. He looks so much like the teachers in school trying their best to deal with all the stupid kids. "I want you to know what you did wrong. You were lucky this time and you survived. You learn from your mistakes so that you do not make them again."

He turns back to his bag and begins pulling item capsules out of them. Pots and pans appear with a flash of light. "_Et_ for the record, there is no one way to train a pokémon. Books are only good for so much. Experience for a little more. Training pokémon is something that you will constantly learn and improve upon. I saw your pokémon battle. They are good at hitting stationary targets, _mais_ they struggle with moving ones. Perhaps you should focus on that a little more?"

"Fine," I snap. "I made a few mistakes but that doesn't mean I'm stupid! I've gotten two gym badges so far so I know _something_!"

"And even champions die through accidents and stupidity. I would be disappointed if I saved your life, only for you to learn nothing and die through another act of stupidity."

**-O-O-O-**

When I wake up the next day, all I want to do is stay in my sleeping bag and pretend that the world outside doesn't exist. What is it with grown-ups and thinking that they can say what they like, just because they've helped you out? I sigh and stare at the orange roof of my tent, zoning out a little.

Diz helped me and he played around with Pascal's brain to do so. He's already messed around with Jerry's brain – how much can I trust him to not do something to me? A bodyguard or whatever he is shouldn't be so willing to hurt my family and he shouldn't be such a jackass in saving my life.

I think the worst part is that I can understand why he didn't pop in and save me. My last thoughts before the ariados bit me still swirl around in my head. I didn't fight as much as I should have done, just because I was waiting for someone to come and save me. Between Diz, Ali, Jerry and even my parents, I can't help but feel like someone's going to show up every time I'm in trouble.

I sigh. Maybe I owe Pascal an apology. He saved my life after all, even if Diz screwed around with his brain to make him do something. Maybe I should see if he knows anything about how to deter psychics from bouncing around in my mind.

I manage to push myself out of my sleeping bag and start to rummage around inside my backpack. I can hear Pascal talking outside, but I can't hear the other side of the conversation. Either he's on the phone or someone else is awake. I freeze in my tent, uncertain if I should go out there or not. If what Pascal said is right, maybe I'm to blame and they might know that already.

Li's zubat died and Andy's shinx ran away because of me. I try to push the thoughts away as I continue to search through my bag for my pokédex. If it wasn't for Kiki's poor attempts at charades, I wouldn't even know what had happened. What if Andy or Li blames me for what happened to their pokémon?

I snatch my pokédex from my bag and flick through it. I was headed for the gym near Lavender before Diz came along and distracted me. I pull up files on the gym and realise I was wrong before – that gym trains dark pokémon, not ghosts. I have to fight them when I go to Johto.

Is that why Diz snatched me before I went there? Would something have happened in that gym that would have made it harder for him to find me? I tap the screen of my pokédex as if it will help me. Unless I head back to Pewter and scoot through Diglett's Tunnel or Mount Moon, Lavender's going to take me a while to get to.

Since I'm already heading to Cinnabar, I can carry on there and get the badge I need along the way. From talking to Ali and Jerry I know that I need to challenge other gyms at the same time. The badges I need have tests that aren't exactly for my pokémon. If I want them to become strong, I'm going to have to complete a normal gym circuit at the same time. Or at least battle a few on the way.

After Cinnabar, I can get a boat to Fuschia. If I don't get the badge there, I should still have Kiki train there as much as possible, seeing as they train poisonous pokémon. It should help her in all the other battles. Maybe if I go up to Celadon and fight the gym there? Erika should be able to help me with Kiki. Then I can go through Saffron, see Ali again and carry on until Lavender.

Then I can go to the gym I need and see if they know anything about how I can protect myself from Diz. I flick through the internet on my pokédex and find a cheap coach website that runs from Cerulean all the way to Johto. The thought of nearly three days on a coach makes me queasy. But I don't want to spend all my money on travelling, not when I've got all these gym battles to register for and the nights I spend in pokémon centres.

I think maybe I'll double back through Saffron and go up to Cerulean. Or maybe go around Rock Tunnel and by Kanto's big power plant. I could use something electrical on my team, even if I only use them to charge all my stuff.

As much as I don't want to, I know that I'm going to have to go outside and see if anyone's awake. I change as slowly as I can, but it still feels like no time at all has passed before I'm stood in front of the tent flap, waiting to open it, hands shaking.

The conversation stops as soon as I leave my tent. Pascal has dragged over logs around the campfire and though it's not burning, he's still got food out in a pan above it. I see that he wasn't on the phone, but instead Andy is awake and alive, though his face seems to be one giant bruise.

He gets up as soon as he sees me. His shorts are the same colour as his bruise. I go to apologise, to say anything to make the situation better, but instead he just walks up to me and hugs me.

I freeze. This is _so_ not what I was expecting. Him shouting at me would make more sense now. Even if he'd hit me. Instead, _this_? I don't know what to do, so I hug him back. As soon as I touch his ribs he hisses and pulls away.

"Sorry," I say reflexively, even if I don't know what it is I'm really sorry for.

"It's alright." He lifts up his shirt and shows me the bandages that wrap around his chest. "Apparently CPR isn't as easy as all the tv shows say."

Tempted as I am to poke them, I manage to stop myself. Andy's top is bright red and makes him look like an exploded grape. "I heard about your shinx. I'm really sorry. I didn't know that we'd walked into an ariados nest and made camp there and –"

"It's alright." He's smiling, actually smiling as much as he can even though his face is one massive bruise. "I didn't notice either after we found you. None of us knew. There isn't one of us to blame for all of this. We're all as stupid as each other." I grin. "But don't let Li ever know I said that. She's awake too, by the way. She's shut herself in her tent, reading through everything she can and swearing that we missed something we should have seen."

"What about Toby?"

Andy shrugs. "Pascal says that he could wake up sometime soon or not at all."

"Ariados venom works in a variety of ways." Pascal gets up and looks at us both. For a moment I'm amazed at just how tall he is. "Not only is it poisonous, but it also causes paralysis, nausea, fainting and can lead to eventual death. If he doesn't wake up by tonight, I'm going to have to risk teleporting him to the nearest pokémon centre."

At that moment Li bursts out of her tent, a book waving in her hand and her hair flailing about her head. "You can't do that!" she hisses. "Pokémon venom aims straight for the bloodstream to take effect. At the moment he should be able to stop it from crossing the blood-brain barrier. If you teleport him then the poison could end up being able to cross it and he'd stand no chance!"

"I know," Pascal says, "but the longer he stays unconscious, the less I can do for him. Like all toxins, some people are more susceptible to them than others. Teleporting may save his life just as much as it might take it."

"I'm confused," I say. Andy seems to understand a little bit more than me, but the foggy look in his eyes is like a reflection of my own. "You said teleporting could make things worse before, but you didn't say how."

"Because teleportation is essentially breaking you down to the molecular level and reconstituting you in another location." I'm already a little bit confused, but Pascal doesn't seem to notice. "What you need to remember is that the world is constantly spinning on its axis. To teleport, a pokémon needs to calculate where a location is, but also where that location will be at the moment they arrive, otherwise they could simply just teleport you into space somewhere. It's also why time travel is impossible to anything but a Celebi or the Dialga."

"Okay," I say, "but that doesn't –"

"Because teleporting breaks you down so far an then rebuilds you, all in an instant, things can go wrong," Li says, sighing a little, as if I'm irredeemably stupid. "Because of that, there's a chance that foreign bodies inside a person can end up in a different location. It's why people that teleport with their pokémon often end up with something like a cold, to something more serious."

Remind me never to teleport again.

"Yes, but my teleporter is a metang," Pascal says. "They're one of the smartest psychics in the world. There's a reason why metagross are used instead of supercomputers – because they're able to process data faster than any computer that's been invented so far."

My head hurts. I groan and rub it until the pain fades away a little. "What about your audino? Can't that heal him?"

"Pokémon biology is different to human biology. I'd need to teach her how to understand a human's genetic makeup before I could let her anywhere near Toby."

"Li, don't talk to her like that," Andy says. "We're just trying to help."

"Well you weren't much help when the ariados were getting ready to kill all of us!"

"And you didn't notice we'd walked into their nest either, so stop acting like you know everything!"

"_Enough!"_ Pascal shouts. He puts a hand on their heads and forces them away from each other. "Shouting is not going to help your friend. If you want to help, search the forest for plantain and marigolds. I trust you know what they are?" Unsurprisingly, Li nods straight away. "Good. Don't go alone. In the meantime, one of you keep that fire going and stacked with wood."

Andy looks at it. "We've got more than enough wood in there though."

"I don't care about the wood, I care about the charcoal beneath it." Pascal grabs a handful from the bottom of the fire and crushes it in his hands until its dust. "Charcoal dust helps to stop a body from absorbing poison. I gave all of you some when I first found you – I even got attacked by a maractus for it."

I can't help but turn red. "It's not my fault Kiki's protective of me," I mumble.

"_Non_, in most circumstances that is a good thing."

"And you just happen to keep charcoal dust on you at all times?" Andy asks.

Pascal looks at him and sighs. "I hunt pokémon for a living. I track them down strong and often violent pokémon, tame them if required and then give them to whoever hired me. It means I spend weeks, if not months on end in the middle of nowhere. So yes, I keep charcoal dust on me. It pays to be prepared and in this instant, it helped save your lives."

He goes to say something else, but coughing from inside Toby's bright green tent stops him. We all freeze, look at each other and then rush towards his tent. Pascal goes in first, crouches down beside him and hands him a flask of water.

"I knew he wouldn't die," Andy whispers from beside me.

Pascal starts asking Toby all the same questions he asked me when I woke up. Once he's certain that Toby isn't about to suddenly drop dead, he lets us move in to talk to him.

It's at that point that Toby looks at all of us and confesses, "I don't want to be a trainer anymore."


	20. The Hunter

_Dear Diary,_

'_Regigigas came before Arceus. When it was defeated, losing the power made it the slow, cumbersome myth we know of today. I think that when the original pokémon decided to pass over its power, the meaning was lost on everything else. It had already shared out so much – who is to say that those abilities are not part of the power it aimed to pass on?'_

_I cannot help but wonder if this means what I pray it does._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|The Hunter|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

"But what do you mean you don't want to be a trainer anymore?" Andy collapses on the ground next to Toby and shakes his head. I can't tell if he's about to cry because his face is just one puffed up bruise. "I thought we were going to go all across the world and beat everyone?"

"That was before my pokémon started dying and things started trying to eat me!" Toby's voice is so scratchy that it makes _my_ throat hurt. He stares at his hands instead of any of us. "I don't want to do this anymore. It's not as fun as I thought it would be."

"It'll get better though. We've all been through worse." Andy leaps to his feet, grabs my hand and drags me towards Toby. "Tell him! Tell him about everything you've gone through! You lived through all those steelix and a bunch of gastly."

"Yeah," I say awkwardly. I don't like being the centre of attention like this. Everyone's watching me and it's not because I've done something amazing. "I was so scared when it all happened and I thought I was going to die . . . but I don't want to stop being a trainer because of it."

"But you want to go back to school," Toby argues. "So you want to stop being a trainer."

I bite my lip as I roll my fingers over the poké balls in my pockets. Sure, maybe once I did. But now? "I'll still be a trainer," I tell him. "It wouldn't be fair to my pokémon if I gave up training them after they've helped me get into my school."

"Exactly!" Andy says. "And if she doesn't want to give up being a trainer now, even after how much she used to say she was never going to be one, surely that means that you shouldn't give up? Come on, Li! Help me out here!"

She looks between us, shrugs and slides her hands into her pockets. "It's Toby's decision. If I could get into my school without having to train pokémon, I would. Just because I like them and want to spend my life curing them doesn't mean that I have to enjoy staying out here, risking being eaten by anything with a large enough stomach."

"But you can't leave anyway, because you'd have to go back through the forest to get out! You've got to stick with us until we get to Viridian, at least."

"Pascal has a teleporter," Li points out.

"But you said that we couldn't teleport anywhere because of all the ariados venom!"

She shrugs, apparently not bothered by Andy's increasing hysteria. I feel like I'm stood in the middle of an argument I shouldn't even know about. "That was when we didn't know if he would wake up. Now he has, we can give him a little while to be certain the venom has flushed from his system and then teleportation should be safe."

"Maybe you should take some time to think about it," I suggest. "I mean, we all freaked out when we woke up after all of this. That doesn't mean you should quit straight away." I take the chance to walk out of the tent and wait outside. I don't even know why I'm really getting involved in any of it. I mean, it's not my decision. Sure, it's nice to have Toby around again, but I know that eventually we're going to part ways.

Li crawls out of the tent after me and walks a little away from it before saying, "I thought you would have argued with him more."

"Is there any point?" I can still hear Andy trying to convince Toby against quitting. I could probably shout and they wouldn't be able to hear me over Andy. Even so, I continue to whisper, "It's his choice, isn't it? It's not like he _has_ to be a trainer."

"That's what I thought," she says. "Some people want to be trainers, others don't. It's not like we all start doing something and then we stick with it for the rest of our lives. Lots of trainers quit their journeys."

"I suppose." I spot Pascal with his volcarona a little bit away from our camp. "We should talk to him," I say. "We can't really tell him to teleport Toby after everything he's done for us."

"You're right," Li agrees. "He saved all of our lives. We need to repay him, somehow."

I can't help but agree. My mind is blank on ways to help in, so instead I hope that talking to him might actually give us some ideas. "Hey Pascal!" I make my way to him before he's even turned to see us walking to him. "Um, we wanted to say thanks, you know. For helping us."

He shrugs. "You don't have to thank me. I like to think that trainers should help each other in such circumstances. Also that it will improve my karma and have my life luckily saved, should I need it." His volcarona apparently grows bored of us, as it takes off to the trees and by the sounds of it, chases a butterfree. "So is this the part where you ask me to teleport you to Viridian?"

"Not _us_," Li says before I can form a response. "Toby. He says that he wants to quit being a trainer. He's scared and afraid that something in the forest might try and kill him at any moment. Once it's safe to teleport him, we wanted to know if you would send him to Viridian so he could have his parents collect him?"

"I suppose I can do that. I have already saved your lives, what is one small teleport-trip after that?"

I remember Diz telling me that he altered Pascal's brain so that he could save us. If he did that, it means that Pascal had to have been nearby for him to find us so quickly. "You were hunting something before you found us, weren't you?"

He seems surprised. _"Oui_," he says slowly, "why do you ask?"

I glance at Li and try to have a silent conversation with her. She doesn't understand what I'm trying to say. The sounds of Andy coming out of Toby's tent pull our attention away for a moment. I try to have the silent conversation with him as he approaches, but I don't understand the looks he gives me.

_I miss Ali._ At least she could understand my face-talk and have an entire conversation with me without any words.

"I wanna help you," I say to Pascal. "You helped us and you had to stop hunting the pokémon you were. So let me help you try and find it again."

"I'll help you too," Li adds. "It's the least we can do."

Pascal sighs and rubs his head. "It is a nice gesture. But do either of you know the first thing about tracking a pokémon?"

We look between each other and shrug. "I tracked down a gastly before. I wanted to capture it but my brother got in the way and stopped me."

"Did you track it, or did you just follow it?"

"I . . . followed it?"

He's already an expert at the angry-parent sigh. "You do realise that it could have been leading you into a trap? Ghosts are notorious for letting people think they're oblivious, then springing a trap at the last moment."

"What about ghosts?" Andy asks. "Are we catching one? There aren't any that live here, are there?"

"Only misdreavous," Pascal says quickly. "But _non_, we are not catching any. I am merely educating your friends on the difference between tracking a pokémon and following it."

"Okay." Andy looks completely confused. At least it's hopefully distracting him from thoughts of Toby leaving. "Why?"

"Because we're going to help him," Li says. "Pascal saved our lives and gave up tracking a pokémon. So we're going to help him find it."

"No, you're not," Pascal says. "Look, I understand what you mean and it's a nice thought. But I would have to teach all of you how to track a pokémon first, so that I could let you wander off without wondering if you were going to put yourselves in harm's way."

"But four sets of eyes are better than one," Andy points out. "And we have our pokémon to help us."

"And it's not just pokémon you have to worry about." Pascal waves for us to follow him. He sits down in front of the smoldering camp fire and prods it with a branch. When we sit around the camp fire he nods to himself. "_D'accord._ Say I do allow you to help me. Do any of you know anything about the Drayano Initiative?"

I'm surprised when it's Andy that answers. "Yeah, it's some sort of weird underground scientist thing where they've altered pokémon somehow and released them into the wild." Even Li seems like she didn't know that. I smirk a little as she realises she doesn't actually know everything.

"I suppose that's a loose way of saying it," Pascal says. "The Drayano Initiative is like you said, an underground movement. It is a collection of biologists that have been able to alter pokémon on the genetic level – changing the very things that make them what they are. Thus far they've only affected a few, but they've been able to change the nature of some pokémon, give them abilities that they should not naturally have and even change their evolution processes."

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a bigger version of a pokédex. Somehow it actually unfolds into a small computer that he turns on by touching the screen. He shows us a picture of a _blue_ serperior, nestled in amongst a few trees and with a stream flowing underneath it.

"This is what I was hunting," he says. "I've been hunting it for a few months – since a fortnight after I met you in Unova." I turn bright red at the memory. Pascal smiles at me. "_Mais_ that is forgiven and forgotten now. This serperior is unique in that not only is it blue instead of green, _mais_ it has been genetically altered to become a dragon. _En plus, _it becomes stronger in situations when other pokémon would grow weaker."

I want one. No, in fact I _need_ one in my team. How awesome would it be to have people thinking they're making me weaker, only to have this huge snake slither over them and squeeze them to death?

"How many of these are there?" Li asks.

Pascal shrugs as he folds his computer back down. "I'm not certain. This serperior? It could be the only one. But the Initiative have been slowly releasing such pokémon for some time now. There are luxray that are now creatures of darkness. Samurott that are fighters, blaziken that grow faster the longer they battle. These pokémon they have created are smarter, stronger, tougher and superior to the existing pokémon in almost every way. In a few hundred years, it is likely they will have replaced everything we know. For now, they are one in a million, which means that collectors will pay through the nose to own one."

"And you're fine with that?" Andy asks. "Just to capture one of these pokémon, take it away from battling and living in somewhere that it's used to and giving it to someone that will keep it in a cage for the rest of its life?"

"No," Pascal says, "which is why I only accept contracts from reputable clients. Pokémon hunting is not some seedy back alley deal where you run from the first sign of police. There are multiple websites on which we register ourselves, both client and hunter. We are all checked to make certain that what we say is correct, that we cause no unnecessary harm to the pokémon and that we're not removing it from a stable environment to be stared at for eternity. Simply training pokémon to battle against gyms is something that never appealed to me. I still have ten badges from each of the main countries, to prove my abilities as a trainer, as well as a hunter. There are people better qualified than me, just as there are those that are worse." He smiles suddenly. "Perhaps in future you should know about a profession before you judge it.

"Now . . ." He looks at us each in turn, meeting our eyes and staring until it has gone way beyond uncomfortable. "I am going to stay here for a few more days. Arthur and Robin – my beedrill and my volcarona – are scouting out the forest and searching for signs of this serperior. In the meantime, I will see how your friend recovers. If he still wants to stop being a trainer, I will offer him a teleportation to Viridian. Any of you are welcome to join him, should you wish to.

"I will also not force any of you to leave, which brings me to my point; I do not want you following me as I continue to track this creature. _Mais_, you are all inquisitive and you make your point that more sets of eyes would help me. So in the time that your friend spends recovering, I will teach each of you how to properly track someone or something, as well as how to hide your own path. I am not an easy teacher and if I feel that you will cause me or yourselves danger, I will teleport you to the nearest pokémon centre and leave you there. Have I made my point?"

We mumble our agreement. He nods and gets back to his feet, telling us he'll make sure Toby's fine.

As soon as he's out of earshot, Andy says, "I think we should catch the serperior ourselves and show him we're better than what he thinks."

"Have you learnt nothing from the ursaring?" Li rolls her eyes. "We're not strong enough trainers. We nearly got eaten by a swarm of ariados and you want to chase after a genetically altered serperior in the hopes we can catch it to impress someone?"

"But he's not just someone; he's the guy that saved our lives!" Andy sighs and pulls clumps of grass free from the ground, muttering under his breath as he throws each of them at the fire. It snaps them up and eats them greedily, basking us with more warmth. "Between the three of us, we could catch it."

"Li's right," I say, even though it pains me a little to say it. "And so's Pascal. We walked into an ariados nest and then you guys ran into it and didn't notice either. If we try to follow this serperior, it'll probably just eat us. If we let him train us, maybe we'll be good enough to help him catch it. Our pokémon might get stronger too, while we train." And I want to ask him if he can use his volcarona to teach Kiki and Cassie how to handle heat better. It might be a while until I get to Cinnabar, but I'm going to need all the help I can get if I have to battle him.

"Fine," Andy snaps. "We'll do it his way. I'm gonna go talk to Toby again." He gets up, storms off and leaves Li and I sat around the campfire with nothing but awkward silence swarming around us.

Li breaks the silence by sighing. I respond in kind and find a stick to poke the fire with. I can feel her eyes on the back of my neck, narrowed and scornful, just waiting for me to say something stupid so she can lord it up about how smart her books make her.

"I should apologise," she says suddenly. I glance at her, waiting for the insult that's about to come with it. "We're not – _I'm _not – as smart as I thought. We all know different things at different levels. I'm not saying that you were right, just that perhaps I should not have been so aggressive with what I said."

"About how I'm an idiot because I only use my books to study history and don't use them to make every decision in my life?"

"That's not what I said!" She gets up and sits opposite me, just so that no matter where I try and turn my head I can't help but see her sat there. "I'm _trying_ to say that neither of us was wrong and neither of us was right. Obviously we're not the smartest people in the world. I'm sorry if I upset or offended you."

I watch her out of the corner of my eyes, waiting for an insult. When none come, I sigh and look up at her. "I guess I'm sorry too. I guess I could have been nicer with the way I said things."

Li smiles at me. "Shall we just say that we were stressed about everything and forget what we said to each other? I'd like it if we could be friends. I got along with Toby, but now that he might be leaving I don't want to be travelling with all of you but be alone at the same time."

"I think I understand," I say. "So why do you think Pascal told us all about that serperior? It's kinda stupid that he'll tell us not to get involved, then tell us all about it so that we're obviously interested."

She shrugs. "Maybe he's testing us, to see if we can remain behind whilst he searches after something else. I think he's giving us an opportunity to convince Toby not to quit training though."

"That or he's using us for bait," I mutter. "Besides, I don't think Toby will change his mind. When he was friends with me, he couldn't make decisions then, but the moment he actually decided on something, we could never make him change his mind. He's kinda lucky he was with us though – his whole plan of capturing a new pokémon in each new place he went to is stupid, unless he trains them all in ways that even the Champions aren't managing."

"I don't think he's using us as bait," she muses. "It wouldn't make much sense for him to spend so long helping us if he was just going to feed us to a serperior a few days later. I think he actually wants to help."

"But _why_ though?" Diz probing his brain can't be the only reason why he wants to stay with us and help. It _can't_ be, because otherwise that just means almost everyone I know could be talking to me and helping me just on the whims of my stalkery hypno.

"Karma? Maybe someone helped him when he was a young trainer?" She looks back to Toby's tent. "We can always go ask him, if you really want to know why?"

"It's fine," I say quickly. All I have to do is survive a few weeks, then I can go to this gym near Lavender and get them to sort out something so that I'll know Diz isn't going to suddenly mix my brains with some sort of psychic whisk. Hopefully in the meantime, so long as I have Mandy around and stick near bugs and ghosts and other things psychics don't like, he won't give me any trouble.

**-O-O-O-**

When the day comes that Toby's able to walk and Pacal's happy that he's not going to suddenly drop dead from poison or anything like that, Andy all but clings to him in an attempt to try and get him to stay.

I watch them from my place by the unlit campfire and shrug to myself. I've already said what little goodbyes I had to say to Toby. Ever since he stopped being friends with Craig and me, there's always been this weird sort of awkwardness between us. It's like an invisible layer of jelly that hangs in the air between us and neither of us has figured out a way to squeeze ourselves through it. It's his decision to quit training – I don't see why sitting around and pleading with him to stay is going to change anything.

And if I'm being honest with myself, I just really don't care too much. I've got the problem of Diz and his psychic powers to worry about, plus getting my badges for my school. It feels like I spent weeks recovering from the ariados, not a few days.

"You're not saying goodbye?" Li asks as she sits next to me.

"I already did," I tell her. I roll Mandy's poké ball between my hands, wondering just when she'll be strong enough to fully block psychics. There are some that can penetrate through the shroud pokémon of darkness create though, I think. I don't think hypno are one. Maybe if I got something like a hydregion I'd be okay. "I'm carrying on being a trainer, even if Toby isn't. I think Andy just doesn't want to be surrounded by us – we make him feel stupid."

"It's not har-" She stops herself at the look I give her, swallows and sighs. "Maybe he'll just miss being the only boy?"

"Maybe." I shrug. "But we're going to learn how to hunt pokémon for the next few days, so at least he'll be distracted from that."

Pascal comes over to us to make sure we're certain we have nothing else we want to say to Toby. We don't. Toby waves goodbye to us as Pascal releases his metang. It floats there, staring off into the distance as if it doesn't see us. Pascal doesn't even have to open his mouth and suddenly him, the metang and Toby all vanish in a flash of blue light.

Andy stomps his way to his tent, muttering, "You could have stopped him," as he passes us. Li looks like she wants to say something back, but thankfully Pascal reappears in a flash of light, metang by his side, Toby no longer there.

"The life of a trainer is not for everyone," Pascal says to us, recalling his metang. "It's why most people now learn another profession on the side. Over half of trainers quit within their first year. Another quarter quit in the next three years. Apparently less than ten per cent of trainers continue with it as a career. Of course, it seems more because trainers are so heavily publicised – the better you are, the more likely you are to become a household name."

"That's Andy's dream," I say. "Li and I just want to study."

"But can you say that you hate every moment of being a trainer? If you were told right now that you could stop training and study, would you honestly?"

"Yes," Li says at the same time I say the opposite.

Pascal just smiles at us. He seems to be actually smiling in a normal way, even though people that smile this much are either creepy old people or those people who work in the holiday parks and hate every moment of their lives because they have to dress up as giant furry pokémon.

"_Bonne_," he says. "I shall fetch Andy _et_ then I shall teach you how to track properly."

"Why are you even teaching us?" Li asks. "Were you just trying to have us convince Toby not to quit training? Or are you going to feed us to the serperior and catch it that way?"

"I'm not going to feed you to anything." Suddenly he's all serious, but still there's a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "When I was a young trainer, I didn't know the direction I wanted to take in life. I ended up in a few situations not dissimilar to the one that I just saved you from. Most trainers left me to my own stupidity. Only a few stopped and took the time out of their own lives to help me, to teach me and to make certain I understood what I was doing.

"Their advice has saved my life a number of times. The things they taught me have helped me become who I am today. Because of that, I continue what they started. I have saved the lives of the four of you. I will teach three of you things that I know. Perhaps you will teach someone else, or perhaps you will keep the knowledge to yourself. Training pokémon is an area in which we are always learning, in which there are no books to give us all the answers, in which everyone experiences something different. Trainers have to share information and knowledge with each other, because otherwise, how else will we ever learn? It is no different to sharing training tips around a table in a pokémon centre.

"Now," he says, "I will attempt to teach you what I know." It's like something sits in the air and changes the way we're acting. Suddenly everything goes quiet and even Andy doesn't look like he wants to complain about Toby anymore.

"_Non_," Pascal says as we go to release our pokémon, "I am training you, not your pokémon. If you wish for them to learn, teach them in your own time. What you do with this knowledge once I share it is up to you, _mais_ I will only teach you."

I grumble as I slide my poké balls back into my pockets. Li and Andy do the same beside me, exchanging looks I don't quite understand. Pascal releases three of his pokémon; the beedrill, the volcarona and the metang and has them float around us.

"They are only here to protect you, should anything come after you. Given that you were already incapacitated by a swarm of ariados, I presume that your pokémon will be equally unable to defend you from anything else that lives in the forest."

I want to argue. Given the expressions on Li's and Andy's faces, I'm not the only one. But because neither of them say anything, I don't either. Pascal tells us that we have to go out into the forest, covering up our tracks as best we can. Apparently we need to learn how to hide ourselves from everything before we can track anything else. I've never really seen any pokémon use footprints to track someone, but he says it's because pokémon aren't the only danger out there and people can be far worse, especially if they're hunting after a specific pokémon.

He sends me out into the forest first. Apparently scattering us will help us not to all go the same way. We're meant to keep an eye out for each other's tracks along the way and avoid them, if we can.

Somehow, I end up with the bright green beedrill following me.

"I wish I had the metang," I say as the beedrill buzzes high above me. It watches me with it's weird eyes, never seeming to look at me. I feel like I'm a piece of food or just something not worthy of its time. "At least that would be able to talk to me."

The bug doesn't say anything. I sigh and check the time on my pokédex. Five minutes since I started walking and I've seen nothing but big plants and trees full of apples. I try to slide my way carefully through the plants, disturbing them as little as possible, stepping on only the hard ground where I can. I have ten minutes until Pascal is going to try and find me, apparently. Five minutes between setting each of us off, then he'll wait another five minutes and try and find us. Apparently if he can find any of us in twenty minutes, we'll have failed and we'll have to keep doing this until it takes him longer.

The beedrill continues to follow me, its eyes shining a creepy shade of blue. The little sunlight that filters down through the trees makes it seem like its eyes are almost glowing. I can't help but wonder if this blue serperior is going to glow too. It would help in trying to find it.

In the trees I see a carnivine with its vines all wrapped around the trunk. As a butterfree flutters past, it screeches and with a snap, the butterfree disappears into its pointy-toothed mouth. I stare at it longingly as it begins to chew on the bug, dripping blood over the forest floor. I want to catch it but apparently battling pokémon isn't allowed whilst Pascal is trying to find us. It'll give away our location too easily or something. I'm torn between ignoring him and catching the carnivine or going along with what he said.

With the big green beedrill buzzing around me, I get the feeling that if I tried to capture anything new, it would chase them off before I could find a poke ball to throw at it. I curse the beedrill, watch the carnivine as it eats the butterfree and then finally make my way further into the forest. My pokédex says I have only a few minutes until Pascal is going to try and find me. I know he's going to find me. Having this big bug buzzing around near me isn't exactly going to be subtle.

"Bugs are good against psychics, aren't they?" I ask it. Predictably, it says nothing. I scowl at it in an attempt to make it talk. Instead it just climbs into the canopy and chases a venomoth away.

"Jerk," I mutter as it continues to ignore me. Plant roots twist and snarl over the forest trail. I try my best to avoid them all, but I can't help but crush loads as I walk through them. With each snap of a twig I wince, certain that it's going to lead Pascal to me. An oran berry squishes under my boots and bleeds purple juice over the dirt. The beedrill continues to buzz above me, almost certainly leading Pascal to me.

I flick open my pokédex and check the time. He's been hunting us – well _me_ – for three minutes. If I can last just a bit longer then –

"_Bonjour."_

I shriek, drop my pokédex and fall onto my butt because _who hangs upside down from a tree like that?_ Does he think he's zubatman or something? His face looks stupid with his smile all upside down and on top of his head and I'm just tempted to throw dirt at him for hanging there laughing at me.

"How did you even get up there?"

He swings up, drops to the floor and brushes bits of leaves off his clothes. "There was a tree stump about a minute away. I heard you stomping through the bushes from there. _Désolé, mais_ I could not resist. You do not notice much of the environment around you. Pay more attention to it and you will find yourself able to do more. At the moment, you seem to focus in on one specific thing, unable to contemplate everything that's happening around you. It is a skill you will require not just in the world, but in pokémon battles too."

I nod as if I've taken in everything he's said. "So why were you walking through the trees anyway? Are you some sort of ninja?"

He just smiles at me. "In ten minutes, I shall answer your questions. Now kindly stay with Arthur whilst I find the other two and bring you all back to the campfire."

I don't even get the chance to argue because he's already sprinting off into the forests. "Your trainer's weird," I tell the beedrill. It says nothing to me. I shrug and consider sitting back down in the mud. I'm already covered in it anyway.

"What does he mean I don't notice enough anyway?" I kick the ground and scatter dirt everywhere. "I've noticed dead legendaries – that's why I'm out here anyway. And what's there to notice in the forests? It's just loads of trees and grass and the occasional bush. None of them are wriggling so it's not like they're tangela or filled with teeny tiny joltik ready to leap out and zap me senseless."

The beedrill still says nothing. I even try saying its name, but all it does is continue to stare off into the distance, like it's a xatu and watching the future or something. "Whatever. I'm gonna go catch that carnivine I saw."

Amazingly, Arthur actually begins to follow me. I can't help but wonder if being a different colour means that it's slightly stupid or something. Most beedrill are normally angry and all stabby-stab anyway. If Andy was here he might know something about it. Or Li might be able to quote a book about why a beedrill won't speak to me. Though if that happened I'd probably just smack the annoying thing over the head with the book. And then possibly hit the beedrill.

I grin to myself when I see the carnivine still wrapped around the tree. Tattered butterfree wings cling to its furry body. I'm pretty sure there's a paras buried between the roots of the tree and all sorts of red and yellow flowers are growing in the bushes around the huge, thick tree.

And Pascal says I don't notice anything. I totally notice stuff. I just don't bother paying attention to any of it.

I grab Kiki's poké ball and let her out. Instantly she buries her roots into the soil, sees Arthur hovering behind me and attempts to kill him with laser vision she doesn't have.

"Leave him alone," I tell her. "Pascal made him stay near me to keep me safe. I want you to help me catch that carnivine." I point up to the trees and make certain Kiki's seen what I'm talking about. The carnivine looks down at us, opens its _huge_ mouth and spits a seed at the floor that sprouts and begins to spread vines all over the forest floor.

Kiki gives me a look of pure disdain. She points up at the carnivine as if to ask me if I'm really sure. "I want it," I tell her. "It ate a butterfree. You can't tell me that's not cool!"

Instead Kiki throws out her arm and a single, long needle flies, goes straight through the carnivine's face and pins it to the tree.

I know that I should be upset that Kiki's just killed a pokémon that I want to capture, but that was such an _awesome_ shot! If I train her enough with that, it can mean that anytime a gym leader wants to battle me or anything, I can just laugh and have Kiki pin their pokémon to the wall. I might even go back to Sinnoh and have Kiki pin Roark to a roundabout for setting his ramparados on me like he did.

But I'll wait until he's recovered and out of his wheelchair first. Otherwise it'd just be mean.

I only know that people are coming when Kiki pulls out her roots and spins around, needles ready. Even when she sees Pascal walking towards us, she keeps them ready to fire. I recall her before she can try and cause any trouble, because I really doubt she'll stand a chance against the volcarona.

Li looks thoroughly annoyed and disappointed by everything, though I'm pleased to see that she's covered in more mud than me. She glares at Pascal when she thinks he's not looking, though given the way he's grinning I think he already knows. Andy is distracted by the carnivine though, pinned to the tree and occasionally dripping blood and what I'm going to pretend isn't a tiny piece of brain onto my shoe.

"Did you do that?" He jumps at the tree. "How did your maractus even aim up that high?"

I shrug. "I just told her that I wanted to catch it. I think she doesn't want me replacing her or something. I don't think I would anyway – my dad would kill me if he found out I wasn't keeping her around."

I don't know what Pascal is thinking about all of it, but his face is definitely not happy. "We should move back to the campsite. That pokémon will start to attract scavengers soon." He starts walking before we can argue with him. Li rolls her eyes but follows after him, mouthing something I don't quite catch.

"So how did he find you?" Andy asks me. "He said that I left too much destruction behind me."

"Something about how I don't pay enough attention to my surroundings. And how I was loud. He just dropped out of the trees all upside down like a ninja though! I think he's a ninja."

Andy grins. "Maybe we'll be lucky and he'll teach us how to be ninjas too! It can't be that hard, right?"

**-O-O-O-**

Oh my god I think my feet are about to fall off.

How quickly can a big snake slither anyway? I mean seriously, it's bright _blue_ and somehow it just keeps disappearing everywhere and I'm not a ninja like Pascal and able to run through trees!

"The leaves here have been disturbed," Li says. I crouch down next to her and see the way they're barely hanging onto the bush anymore. "It means something was here in the past day."

"But they're starting to wilt," I point out. "So it's older than a day."

She nods quickly, not saying anything. Andy shouts from ahead, that he's found tracks. The good thing about hunting a pokémon is that they're not so smart about covering up their tracks. After a week of having Pascal make us go out from sunrise to sunset, learning how to track and cover our own tracks, I think I'm actually part crazy-hunter living in the woods.

"Do you think we'll be able to trap it this time?" Andy whispers.

Li shrugs. "If we're smart. I don't want to nearly be eaten again."

"But Pascal's coming from the other way, right? So we'll trap it."

"Unless it decides to eat him," I point out.

Andy looks shaken at the thought, but says nothing. I see the way the bushes bend and twist as he moves past them, the footprints he leaves in the dirt, even as he tries to cover them up whilst walking. The constant sound of beedrill buzzing in the trees seems to have become background noise. Occasionally a pidgey squawks or a pikachu rushes by, chittering, but otherwise everything just sounds normal.

"It'll get dark soon," Li whispers. I look up and see the way the little light that comes through the trees is beginning to glow almost red. Blue serperior or not, it'll be hard to find in the dark. "Should we stop following it for now?"

"What if it escapes and leaves the forest?"

She gives me a flat look. "Pascal tracked it here before we were swarmed by the ariados. If it hasn't left yet, it's likely made its nest here or something."

"Guys!" Andy hisses from up ahead. "I've found it!"

We practically sprint to Andy and squat down in the bushes next to him. From where we are we can see the serperior perfectly. It's as blue as daytime sky and almost seems to sparkle when the light hits it. It starts to slither up and around a thick, broken tree, up to a nest on one of the branches where a pidgeotto is sleeping peacefully.

I blink and the pidgeotto squawks and flaps desperately in the serperior's mouth. There's a _crunch_ and suddenly the pidgeotto stops moving and the serperior begins to swallow it whole.

"Poor pidgeotto," Andy says.

"Who cares about the pidgeotto? I want my own serperior!" If it's capable of sneaking up all stealthily on a sleeping bird and eating it whole, imagine what it could do in a battle! I'll get one big enough to eat a druddigon whole. "Where's Pascal?"

As if to answer my question, his volcarona bursts out of the treetops, screeching, scattering powder all over the floor and spitting string. It manages to cover the serperior's tail in thick, sticky webbing, but the serperior's tail glows like it's made of iron and all the string slides away and suddenly it slithers across the floor faster than should ever be possible. It leaps from the ground and its jaw opens wide enough to eat the volcarona whole but suddenly the metang is there, eyes glowing blue as the serperior's jaws wrap around it.

I don't know what happens, but suddenly the serperior is thrown back into a tree with enough force to splinter the trunk. I know that it should be dead because of that, but it manages to get back up and breathes bright blue flames everywhere. The metang hisses as the volcarona scatters more powder and tries to grab its attention, when Arthur darts in from above and spears the serperior and thick, purple goo leaks from his stingers and into the snake.

It hisses as its scales begin to burn and a horrible smell like something's dead starts to fill my nose. For a moment I think that Arthur's managed to kill it, but suddenly it breaks free, hissing and the forest comes alive. The trees groan and crack as the bushes lean forwards and suddenly the ground underneath me start to vibrate. Thick roots leap from the ground and wrap around Arthur and the volcarona, whilst the tree wraps a branch around the metang and begins to squeeze and squeeze and if Pascal doesn't do anything soon he's going to get his pokémon killed!

Three beams of red light erupt from the ground and swallow Pascal's pokémon whole. The serperior looks confused for all of a second before it narrows its eyes in our direction. I know that it can't see us properly, but somehow I know it knows we're there. It flicks its tongue in our direction and Pascal doesn't do anything to help us.

"We're his bait!" Li whispers, horrified. Yet none of us can move, not with the serperior staring straight at us.

It's at that moment when a _second_ blue serperior appears and my stomach drops out of my body.

"I thought he said there was only one of them!" Andy squeaks. "There's two! What do we do?"

"Serperior don't travel in pairs," Li says quickly. "They're solitary creatures. They never spend time near each other unless it's mating season."

"Well I don't want to be eaten and I don't want to watch slithery snake sex!" I make a face and prepare to run, even if one of the pokémon starts to chase me. As I watch them, I notice something is strange about the second serperior. It moves like it isn't sure how to move properly – its back half moves completely differently to its front. It's almost like the serperior is made of two different pokémon stuck together.

As the two serperior grow close to each other, the air seems to grow thick. They mirror each other's movements, wiggling and standing and flicking their tongues at each other, when suddenly one of them erupts in yellow light bright enough to make me unable to see for a moment. As my eyes clear I see a flash of white light and the serperior erupting from a poké ball, angry and chasing after a tiny black fox. Pascal shouts something in a language I don't understand, his clothes torn and a bite mark in his shoulder, bleeding all the way down his back. He throws another poké ball at the serperior and the pokémon smacks it back, right into his face and knocks him flat on his backside.

The fox glows and suddenly there's a charizard in its place, roaring and spitting fire. The serperior leaps at it, slices through its neck and the charizard vanishes in an instant. The tiny fox is there again, whimpering as it backs away as far as it can.

Pascal throws another poké ball at the serperior. This time it manages to snatch it up completely. He doesn't waste a moment as he runs forwards, picks up the ball and wraps it up in duct tape faster than I've seen anyone move. He drops it as the duct tape ball begins to glow like it's about to explode and the dirt around the ball smoulders and actually _catches fire._

Then suddenly, everything stops and the poké ball stops moving.

We climb out from the tattered remains of a bush. "Did you catch it?" Andy asks. "Or did you kill it?"

"I'm not too sure," Pascal admits. He bends down, cooing as he takes the tiny black fox into his arms. I don't know what he says to it, but suddenly the fox wags its tail and nips at his hands playfully. He recalls it into a ball, picks up the duct taped serperior ball from the ground and scans it with his pokédex-laptop thing.

"It's captured," he says, sighing exhaustedly. "And for the record, never try wrapping a poké ball in duct tape. It just turns the pokémon emerging from the poké ball into a small bomb." He drops the ball into his bag and grins at us. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to collapse in my sleeping bag and have a heart attack."


	21. Fall Flat at the Second Hurdle

_Dear Diary,_

_It is the following passage that has given me the most information I have yet discovered,_

'_If not Arceus, but another god was truly the creator and had control over all, why is it that Arceus does not have control over every matter of existence? Surely a pokémon with the powers of creation would be able to control the wind, the rain, gravity and even the pressure of the world we live on? Either the texts are wrong, the pokémon have gotten weaker, or somehow shared out power amongst its chosen?_

'_There are, after all, several dozen mythological pokémon, each with their own innate abilities.'_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Fall Flat at the Second Hurdle|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

The poké ball shuts with a soft click. My hands shake as I bend down to pick it up. The broken remains of the forest lay around me. A tree trunk lies on its side, split in two by a lucky strike. Cotton and seeds stick to the grass and make it impossibly hard to move. They stick to the side of the poké ball and I have to pry them all free individually, one at a time.

From my shoulder, Mandy trills happily and nibbles at a strand of my hair. Kiki scowls as she slaps cotton out of her path, apparently still searching for something to beat up.

Meanwhile, I just grin as I toss the poké ball between my hands. Hello two days' worth of stalking bugs through the forest. Pascal can say what he likes now, because I hold in my hands the big ugly scyther that caused all of this destruction!

I shall call her Lady Slicey and she shall be the deadliest bug with sickles for arms that anyone has ever seen.

"Well done," Pascal says. He leaps down from a tree branch like the ninja Andy's convinced he is and I see that his puffy black jacket has a few new cuts in it. Oops. I'm sure it totally wasn't the scyther that caused that. If it was, well it was wild at the time so he so can't blame me, no matter what he says.

He plucks the poké ball from my hands and scans it with his pokédex-laptop. What would one of those even be called? A pokétop? A lapoké? Pokélet? Naming things is hard. How do people that create things even manage to do it all the time?

"She's strong," Pascal says. "_Et_ you are certain that she had no young that were still depending on her?"

"She's all alone," I say, shaking my head. After spending two days tracking this big ugly bug and watching her slice apart pokémon and eat them, never nesting in the same place twice and just generally not having any little tiny baby scythers near her, I'm pretty sure she's alone.

Now I want a baby scyther. It'll be all cute with how tiny it will be and having big blade arms at the same time. How do they even scratch their nose if they have an itch?

"_Bonne._ Well, now it is up to you what you do with her." He hands me back the poké ball and returns his poképad to his bag. "If you wish to train her, continue to do so. _Mais_ if you wish, I can sell her on the hunter's network for you – or I could assist you in setting up a profile. You pay a yearly fee, but they will send you contracts or simply sell on any pokémon you capture and do not want. As I said before, each person they allow to buy and sell is checked thoroughly, so you will be certain that they will treat it right."

I hold up the poké ball to the light. Mandy tries to pry it out of my fingers. I'm pretty sure Kiki glares at it. A couple of pidgey flutter past, confused that most of their trees are gone and this bit of the forest is filled with slice-marks. Mandy trills and chases after them, cawing happily until they're out of sight.

"What happens if I sell it?" I ask. Mandy lands back on my shoulder, staring at the poké ball with interest.

"You register it on the site _et_ they pay you a fixed rate for it. Once it is sold, they give you the difference, minus their fees. They pay less for ferals, so if you train it first, you will get more money, _mais_ you may also become attached to it and not wish to sell it. Selling it now also means you do not have to name it."

I look again at the remains of the forest. Having one of these slicey-bugs on my team would be awesome. But then again, I'm still trying to train Cassie and I've got to fight Blaine next, which means that I'm pretty much relying on Mandy the whole while. Adding another pokémon to my team might be a good thing and all, but will it help if it's just going to be weak against him too?

I hand Pascal the poké ball. "Sell her," I say. "I can't look after her – not yet. I might as well get some money for her so that I can train my pokémon."

He nods as he slides the ball into his bag. "If that is what you want. I'll register it tomorrow evening. If you haven't changed your mind by then, I'll help you set up an account so that they can pay you. Now, excuse me whilst I find the others and see how they are getting on."

With the speed he runs off through the waist-high grass, I'm certain Andy's theory has to be true. Pascal must have done some ninja magic or something to be able to catch his green beedrill in the first place. Jerry says that finding a pokémon that's completely a different colour to normal is pretty rare. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I managed to take a picture of the blue serperior, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't believe me about that either.

Though to be fair, _I_ didn't totally believe it until I saw the picture.

"Do you think I made the right choice?" Of course, it's not like I've got Diz around to help translate my pokémon for me, but given that Kiki needled that carnivine to death, I'm sure they have something to say.

Instead Mandy just continues to try and eat my hair whilst Kiki sort of shrugs and pretends that I'm as important as a shrub.

"It'd be too hard to train her," I say, even though it's pretty clear my pokémon aren't listening. "And I mean, I don't want to be running around trying to train something that's bigger than me and can cut me in two if it wants to. At least you guys can't do that." Well, Cassie could have frozen me to death at any point, but I think she's too occupied chasing glitter in the breeze to think of murdering me. At least, I hope she is.

I should buy more glitter.

"You guys aren't helping. I'm gonna find Andy." I recall Kiki and keep Mandy on my shoulders as I start to try and figure out where Andy's ran off to. He said something about how he's been chasing after a heracross or something. Li, wanting to outshine us all has decided to try and find out if the serperior had any babies. I'm pretty sure she's not about to suddenly find little blue snivy crawling around in the forest, but if she really wants to, I'm not going to stop her. My parents would say it's mean of me to be happy at her failures, but they're not here so I can be as mean as I like. Besides, I haven't forgiven her for being a jerk, even if she says she wants to be friends.

Andy's pretty easy to track. He still can't cover up his footprints that well and he leaves a trail of broken sticks and petals behind him. Apparently he gets bored when he walks and his hands have to do something. I don't think it helps that his ribs still haven't healed. By the looks of it, he walks heavier on one side, which I guess lessens the pressure on his ribs or something, but it leaves deeper tracks in the mud.

As I approach I can hear what sounds like a pokémon screeching. In the small space between a few trees I can see Andy, covered in shadow and with little bits of light streaming down around him. An oddish dances on the ground in front of him and little tiny flecks of what look like dust come out from between its leaves and float through the air.

The fact that Andy has his nose buried in his jacket alerts me to what's actually happening. I cover my mouth and nose with my hoodie and start to creep closer. Mandy looks curiously at me and tries to mimic me with her wings. Mostly she ends up losing her balance and nearly falling off my shoulder.

The oddish shrieks and I see it bounce along the dirt and roll into the nearby high grass. A beam of red light chases it, even as a white light explodes in the little clearing in front. I see Andy's munchlax sat on the floor, apparently more interested in drawing with its fingers in the mud than fighting whatever it is that Andy wants so badly.

I manage to get a bit closer and see that he's fighting a pinsir. It shrieks at him, though it's covered in yellow spores and apparently has trouble breathing. Andy chucks a poké ball at it, but instead the pinsir slaps it away, hisses at him and quickly turns and starts limping off into the forest. Andy chucks another poké ball after it, shouting as his munchlax, but he only misses the pinsir as his pokémon grunts and lies on its back.

"You're so useless," he growls at his munchlax. "All you ever do is eat and sleep." I swear I can see a little rattata in a wheel running round inside his head. "That means you're getting ready to evolve, doesn't it?" He smiles and thinking he's alone, jumps up and down and starts punching the air.

I'm almost tempted to leap out of the bushes and scare him. As much as I want to, it would only make him start creeping up on me and trying to scare me at any time. It might be fun, but with my luck I'll somehow fall into a nest of angry beedrill that want my blood.

"Andy!" I shout, pretending I'm still trying to look for him. He stops jumping around instantly and swivels his head around like a cornered patrat. I should have learnt how to ninja from Pascal, so I can jump down from the trees and scare him. He winces and reaches for his ribs, rubbing them through his shirt.

I burst out from amongst the bushes, feigning exhaustion. Andy smiles as he sees me, though his ears are still tinged red. His munchlax is still sprawled out across the ground, either staring up at the sky or sleeping with its eyes open.

"Did you manage to catch anything?" he asks me.

"A scyther," I say. "But I gave it to Pascal. I've got three pokémon to train anyway and I've only got one badge so far. Well actually two, but only one that I need. I don't think I'd be able to train another pokémon just yet. What about you?"

"I nearly caught a pinsir," he says. "But it got away from me. My stupid munchlax decided to sleep instead of battle."

"That means it's evolving soon, doesn't it?" It's fun to pretend that I actually know loads about pokémon. Mandy, apparently bored of our conversation, decides to yawn as loudly as possible. I can't help but copy her. "I'm bored of this forest," I say.

"Me too," says Andy. "Let's go find Li and see what she says. Maybe Pascal will want to leave too. He might even teach us how to run through trees like him."

I grin. "I hope so. How awesome would it be to run into the trees and scare people?"

He just rolls his eyes at me. "Don't be stupid. It'd make it way easier to catch pokémon. That's how you should use it."

"Whatever. When I'm a master ninja, you'll see how awesomely I'll use all my powers."

**-O-O-O-**

Viridian City is, in all honesty, pretty boring. After they found out that the gym leader was also the leader of the Rockets, they tried replacing him with a few other temporary gym leaders. But all the local people and the media thought that only another criminal would end up running the gym, so they all quit one after the other. Now the old Viridian Gym is a museum dedicated to the heroes that ended the Rockets' reign of terror, as well as detailing all the ways they held power over KanJo.

As interesting as museums normally are, I don't really want to go to one to learn about some fat man in a suit that loved pizza and having people killed. I mean, sure he managed to get all these people buried in concrete and they're pretty sure that most of the pillars holding up the cycling road have the bodies of his victims in them, but it's not like the actual past, where no one really knows what happened and everyone has to guess about what might have happened.

"Once we reach Pallett, I shall be leaving you," Pascal tells us. Now we're in a town, he doesn't have any of his pokémon out. He looks really uncomfortable with all the people there are walking down the streets. Everything in Viridian is like a dull shade of either green or brown. Since Pascal's dressed in dark greens, he looks almost like he could blend in with a nearby shop. It has to be further proof he's secretly able to use a katana and battle demon spirits or whatever Jerry says ninjas can do on his shows.

"I have business in Fuchsia to attend to."

"Okay," I say. He's already helped me set up my account with his pokémon hunter's website and after saving my life, I'd feel bad if I made him help with anything more. The scyther I gave him is apparently still waiting to be sold, but they've already given me over five thousand poké for it! At least I won't have to suffer with stale food whilst I'm outside in the forests anymore. I can just buy cheeseburgers and steaks and have Cassie freeze them so I can eat them when I'm lost in the wilderness.

Except I'll need something that can heat them up first. I need a fiery pokémon.

"I'm going straight through to Cinnabar anyway." I can catch something fiery there, if there are even pokémon there anymore. Apparently after the volcano erupted, everything left, but Blaine's gone back there because it's his home or something. I mean, there are other little islands around the big one that are still _technically_ Cinnabar, but he's only happy if he's on the big, exploding volcano one. I'd call him weird, but I need him to like me so he'll give me a badge.

"It's fine by us – we've got an internship with Professor Oak anyway."

"What?" I spin around and see the way Andy's grinning. "You said that you guys were only going to talk to him. Since when did you get an internship with him?"

"The more important question is _how_," Pascal says. "Those are lucrative – it isn't just anyone that gets handed one. How did a couple of ten year old _enfants_ end up with an invitation for an internship?"

"We won it," Li says quickly. "It was a prize that we were entered for before we left school – who could produce the best argument for a new brand of pokémon research. There were five winners from our school. Andy, Toby and I won this year's internship, but now that Toby has quit, I suppose his place will go to someone else."

"What?" I say once more. "How comes I didn't know anything about this? No one ever told me and I haven't had any days off school sick since I was like _eight_, so when did this happen?"

"After school pokémon training club," Andy answers quickly. "The one that you didn't want to go to because it involved learning how to be a pokémon trainer."

"Oh." There isn't anything else I can say to that. Sure I might not have wanted to be a trainer, but still, if I'd have known I could get an internship at Professor Oak's place I would have gone! In fact, why did they even get a place there and not with Professor Juniper?

"Our school had strong ties with Kanto – they're one of the first ones that began to let Kantonese pokémon into Unova." Li sets about explaining almost everything when I ask. "Because of that, they formed an alliance with a few stronger trainers from Kanto, one of whom happened to be Professor Oak himself."

"Still," I say, "someone could have told me." I pretend that I'm not bothered as I go back to staring at the landscape. Considering how much forest there is between Viridan and Pewter, it's weird that Pewter is almost all stone whilst Viridian is like a blend of mountain and trees. Walking through the dips in the valleys makes the trees seem even bigger, whilst walking along the tops of fallen tree trunks makes the lower parts of Viridian seem even smaller. The fact that the whole town seems to be built on a bunch of hills is pretty cool.

If the place had a gym, it would probably be pretty full with trainers. As it stands, the streets mostly have people in suits walking about chatting on their phones, or people dressed smart and just generally avoiding making eye contact with us. I don't know why, but people with normal jobs seem to treat any pokémon trainers like we're all diseased or something. I don't know why. I mean, _sure_ we're out in the middle of nowhere most of the time and might not always get to wash each day, but that doesn't mean we're all about to infect everyone with stoutland rabies or something.

I can't stop the yawn that breaks out. The others follow me quickly and people walking down the road start moving past us with even more distance between us. It's like they think our every action is going to make them horribly diseased, or that we're all secretly Rockets and we're going to try and mind-meld them and reduce them to our drooling slaves.

Which actually sounds like a good idea, come to think of it.

**-O-O-O-**

The smell of burning meat fills the air. I shriek as I slide the goldeen off the skewer, stupidly not realising that it's cooking and therefore _hot_ until it's too late.

Andy snorts and spills water out of his nose. Li manages to laugh so much that she drops her own food on the floor. I grin at them both as I stick my fingers in my mouth and try to breathe cold over them. Obviously, it doesn't work.

Pascal just sighs and shakes his head. "How have you managed to live so long without severely injuring yourself?"

"Magic," I say, smiling. "I'm just naturally awesome, so that helps too."

"Of course." Pascal rolls his eyes at me. The sun's setting behind him, making him seem like he's got this massive orange glow that follows him around wherever he goes. I can still see Viridian behind us, with buildings that stretch far higher than the trees. The sounds of pokémon are quiet under the continual hum of motorways from Viridian. Even though we're so close to the city, it still feels quieter and _nicer_ because we're out in the wilds.

Cassie races up and steals the food Li's dropped on the floor. Even as Li mutters about how unhygienic it has to be, Cassie chortles and runs off into the tall grass, dropping pieces of goldeen behind her. I'm pretty sure something tries to steal it off her, because there's suddenly a shriek, the air gets cold and a frozen spearow rolls out of the grass, chased by a very happy Cassie who hums as she kicks it along somewhere. It wouldn't surprise me if she's dug a cave of insanity or something already.

"Your pokémon are strange," Andy tells me. "Why don't you train them to be a bit more . . . normal?"

"Then they wouldn't be them," I say, as if it's obvious. "I met a psychic and it translated their words for me to understand. So now I know what they're like, better than guessing by watching what they do." I shrug and manage to eat the cooled down food. Awesome pokémon hunter and possible ninja he might be, but Pascal is _not_ a good cook. I think Kiki would do a better job. "If I train them out of those habits, what if it changes them? It'd be like if people made us have to do everything in their normal way, instead of thinking for ourselves."

"They're called schools," Li says. She even manages a smile. "They teach us everything we have to learn and the ways we behave in different situations, then we learn something new and teach them and the people that come along after us. It might be how humans are the dominant species, even though we can't breathe fire or make people's heads explode."

Andy snorts again, this time managing not to shoot water from his nose. "You've been hanging around _her_ for too long," he says, pointing at me. "Next you'll be talking fast and getting distracted by deadly pokémon."

"I'm not _that_ bad!" I declare, but even Pascal joins in when they laugh. "Whatever," I huff. "If I was normal, I'd end up being boring like my parents. Well, like my dad at least."

"I don't think it would be all bad," Li says. "Some people must like it. Toby's chosen it."

The mention of him makes everyone grow quiet. The firelight bounces off everyone's faces and makes them veiled in shadows and seem way more serious than they should be. Pascal's metang hovers some distance away, hiding in the shadows of trees, identifiable only by a pair of glowing red eyes in the darkness. It's more than just a little creepy. Li's audino is tucked up in her lap and Andy's oddish is buried in the dirt, only its leaves sticking out.

Ever since the ariados, they've barely ever had their pokémon out. I swear it's just Pascal and I that bother. I get that they're worried about losing them – I thought Mandy was dead too – but surely they can just train them and make them get stronger that way?

But given their strange methods and ways of catching pokémon, I guess I wouldn't be able to convince them otherwise, even if I did try.

"For what it is worth, perhaps being a parent is not a boring life for them," Pascal says suddenly. He's just staring at the fire, not bothering to eat his food, instead leaving it stuck to the end of his fork and in his little metal dish. I half-suspect it's because he's tired of eating his own boring food.

"Your accent's gone again," Andy notices. "It's always there and then it's not."

I look from him to Pascal, confused. I don't really understand accents other than the ones I know. The only time I ended up speaking in one, I was put in the special class in school for a week.

Pascal shrugs. "That's because it's not my actual accent." I notice it that time and try to recreate the way he says ahk-sant.

"My grandparents raised me," he tells us. "When I was older, they told me that my parents died in a plane accident with my mother's parents. My father was from Kalos. Ever since then, I tried to mimic the accent . . . as if it would bring me closed to them, or something. But I do not understand languages, much as I have tried. All I can manage are the occasional words – _et, mais, d'accord. _I thought it would make me feel closer to them. It doesn't, if I am honest."

"You don't have to speak a language to make yourself feel closer to someone," Li says. "My parents gave me a traditional name and taught me occasional words, but they were always too busy to teach me. My great-grandparents can't speak a single word of English. Whenever I see them, we can't understand each other. That doesn't mean I don't feel close to them. Pretending to be something you're not isn't going to make you feel closer to people that you never knew in the first place."

Andy almost chokes on his food. "Harsh!" he hisses.

"She's right," Pascal says. "_Mais_, it is also my decision to do this. I will not stop, simply because it doesn't give me the results I want. Perhaps one day I will be able to teach my children, or have them taught this language, so that they may have a connection to the grandparents they will never know."

It's at that moment when Cassie races at us, leaps over the fire and scatters a bag of popcorn she's randomly discovered, effectively destroying any seriousness we had.

I pick her up and manage to keep her in my arms, even though she's cold and making me shiver as much as she does. "I'm so keeping you around the next time my parents get mad at me," I tell her.

She responds by puking up what I'm pretty sure are frozen feathers and popcorn kernels onto the ground.

**-O-O-O-**

Pallet Town has started to make a name for itself as the birthplace of Champions. Apparently over half of Kanto's recent Champions have been either born or brought up in Pallet. It's not exactly surprising in a way, given that they've got Professor Oak in the town, able to teach at all the schools when he wants.

Pallet itself is kinda sleepy and boring, almost like where grandma and grandpa live. There's a constant breeze that comes over the town from the sea, a huge beach in the south that apparently sometimes has gyarados wash ashore and wind turbines that line the horizon, gathering up as much power as they can for Professor Oak's labs and pokémon ranch.

"I'd like to live somewhere like this," Li says. The streets we walk through don't have any paved roads for cars. Instead they're mostly all dirt roads, with the normal pavement for people to walk on. I understand why when a couple of diglett burrow down the road, singing as they pass us.

As they go, I can't help but sing the song for a cartoon when I was little, "Diglett dig, diglett dig-"

"Trio, trio, trio!" Li and Andy both say, laughing. Pascal just looks at us like we're freaks.

"I loved that show!" Andy declares. "Do you think we'll be allowed to watch it whilst we're at Professor Oak's?"

"We're there to learn," Li reminds him.

"That doesn't mean we can't have fun!"

"You both have to let me know what's happening there," I tell them. "It's the least you can do since you didn't let me know I could have even won this competition."

"I entered," Li says. "You would have never won."

Before I can tell her just how wrong she is, Pascal quickly says, "Why don't we walk with you to the laboratory? We have to head straight to the docks afterwards."

After saying goodbye to Ali and Jerry, knowing that Li and Andy are leaving doesn't really bother me that much. I mean, I've spent nearly two months with them altogether, but . . . I guess I just don't get along with them as much as I do with Ali and Jerry. I'm not sure if it makes me a horrible person or not. I mean, I might miss having them around, but only because it's nice to have people to talk to and not a creepy stalker hypno who refuses to wear underpants.

"How old is Professor Oak now anyway?" Andy asks. "Isn't he like a hundred?"

"People rarely live to that age," Li points out.

"_Oui, _true. But he is older than time itself." Pascal grins at us. "He was around when pokémon were first discovered, did you not know? He used to hunt them with nothing but a stick and a butterfly net."

"I'm not falling for that," I say. "There's a limit to how much I'd believe." And to be honest, he's just not that good a liar. I saw him trying to tell that nurse in Viridian that he was really twenty and she wasn't that much older than him. She did _not_ believe him in the slightest.

Even from a few streets away, I can see Professor Oak's ranch almost perfectly. Like everywhere else in Pallet, he's got massive windmills in his fields. I don't think I can really call them gardens seeing as he owns a place that's almost as big as a town. A couple of pokémon-shaped silhouettes fly against the midday sun – though I can see a beehive-shaped pattern that's barely visible in the sky. If what I remember Jerry saying is right, then most pokémon researchers that act as storage facilities for trainers have kinetic barriers around their land, to stop poachers sneaking in or the pokémon escaping. Apparently they're maintained by a network of porygon and rotom that manage only to shock pokémon enough to scare them, rather than hurt them.

"Something interesting is going on," Pascal says. "Crowds are outside."

Since he's taller than me, I can't see what he's talking about until we're closer. Sure enough, there's a crowd of people all stood outside the gates to Professor Oak's place. I can see them all bouncing up and down, screaming loudly enough that I can hear them, though I can't hear what they're saying.

Whatever's going on though, it's drawn a bigger crowd than Cynthia did at Diglett's Cave.

"I thought Professor Oak was old," I say. Instead of the little grey haired old man I expected to be at the gates, I can see a man that's younger than my dad stood in front of the gates, wearing a white lab coat, so that has to mean he's a professor. He's got it open, underneath which he's wearing a tight purple top and brown slacks.

As he talks, he brushes a hand through his short, spiky brown hair.

"Look, that's not what I'm saying." As we get closer, I can hear what it is he's telling everyone. Behind him I can see an umbreon, black as night with glowing blue ring patterns along its body. Its eyes are shining like gold, even in the middle of the day. I guess it has to be projecting his voice or something, just like Cynthia did with her lucario.

"Gramps – the Professor Oak you all know and revere isn't dead or anything close to it. God, you people are like vultures aren't you, twisting everything until it's something scandalous." Even his sighs are projected, somehow. "Look, I don't know how many times I can say this, alright? I'm not taking over because of any family favours or any bullshit like that. I earned my doctorates, I studied my ass off and you know what? I'm the best person for this job. Gramps is old and he needs to rest a bit more. Who better to take over things than me?

"So I'll put this in simple terms, so you can't get confused and report something I never said. Gramps is fine. He's just handing over responsibilities where he can so that he's got some more time on his hands. God knows the poor old bastard could use a holiday now and then. Now that's all you're getting. You've got ten minutes to leave before I activate the sprinklers. And FYI: they're filled with arbok venom."

Whoever the man is, he turns around and walks towards the huge metal gates. They start to open and let him past, though his umbreon follows after him slowly, watching the reporters, its teeth bared in a snarl as if daring any of them to try and follow into the gates. It's only when the gates shut behind it that it darts away, almost bouncing down the path towards the huge laboratory.

"Does that mean we're not going to work with Professor Oak?" Andy asks.

"That _was _Professor Oak." Pascal laughs at Andy's confused face. "Did you not hear what they just said? Samuel Oak is slowly retiring. His grandson is taking over things."

"But that's not who we were promised we would get to work with!"

"People grow old, they can die. You all nearly died in that forest – you wouldn't have gotten to work with anyone if you had."

"I'm sure the older Professor Oak will still be there," Li says. "This one wouldn't have taken over if he wasn't qualified enough for the job."

"I'm still jealous, if that helps," I say. The reporters seem to have realised now that they're not going to get anymore answers. I watch as a couple of them release psychics and try to teleport their way into the lab, by the look of things. Each time they try though, an explosion of black crackles in the air above them and stuns their psychics stupid for a moment. Whatever it is, I need it in my life.

Li keeps staring at the lab, as if she's desperate to try and get in there as soon as possible. I take the hint, even though she's not aware she's dropping it. "I need to catch my boat," I say, "so I'll leave you here. Have fun."

I'm surprised when Li hugs me. I know she said that she wants us to be friends, but I'm not exactly sure we are. "It was good travelling with you," she says. "Though no offence, I'd rather not go through everything like that again."

"I know how you feel," I say. Andy pretty much squeezes the air out of my lungs and I know it has to hurt him because I can feel my elbow being squashed against the bandages still wrapped around his chest.

"Don't die out there," he tells me. "You're not as much of a butthole as I thought you were. I'll miss you."

"I don't blame you," I say before I can stop myself. "And uh . . . I'll miss you guys too." He seems to smile more when I say that. He hugs Pascal, despite it being pretty obvious that Pascal doesn't want a hug, whilst Li seems to understand and instead shakes his hand.

"Take care of yourselves," Pascal tells them.

We leave them to go and get into the lab in whatever way they need to. Mostly it's so that we don't have to deal with the annoying reporters who look like they're going to question a brick if it would give them a story.

"So," Pascal says as we start walking up the road, "how much did you dislike them when you first started travelling with them?"

"I . . ." He seems to know exactly what I'm about to say, so instead I just shrug. "Not a lot," I say. "I mean, I used to be really good friends with Toby, but then we fell out when he started liking pokémon and I didn't. I never got along with Andy and I'd never really spoken to Li properly. I dunno, I mean, I guess I'm better friends with them now, but they're not my _best_ friends, if that's what you're asking."

"That's not what I'm asking," he says. "You just did not seem too concerned with them leaving. It's strange."

"I'm not," I say. "And why's it strange?"

"No reason," he says, in a tone that tells me there is a really big reason. "So Cinnabar." I pretend like I don't notice the obvious change in subject. "Where are you going after that?"

"Probably to Fuchsia," I say. The smell of the sea gets stronger as we walk towards it. I can see it in the distance, over the tops of the houses. The breeze comes towards us, bringing with it the fresh air and the sounds of wingull screeching. "But I guess you'll be elsewhere by then?"

"Probably. The benefits of my job is that I am never frequently in one place, unless I choose to be. Now that you are registered, you may take hunting requests, should you wish to. Though, I would advise that you do not hunt anything too strong, at least not just yet. If you do, contact me."

"Thanks but you've already saved my life _and_ taught me how to hunt pokémon. You can't just keep teaching me stuff."

"I enjoy teaching," he says. "It makes me feel that I'm contributing something worthwhile to the world."

"You're way too morbid." At the bottom of the hill I can see the docks. Huge steel cargo containers are being loaded on massive ships by cranes. I can see pokémon carrying piles and piles of luggage onto ships and queues of people in all sorts of summer clothes waiting to get on their ships.

"Perhaps I am," he says. "_Mais_ you must remember, I deal with the threat of death on a daily basis, each day I spend hunting a pokémon in the wild. I may die out there, left alone to rot and never discovered, though you may also find yourself in such a position. It is a peril of being a pokémon trainer and something that you should try not to forget.

"Though, this is where we part ways, so I shall try to end our conversation on a lighter note. Good luck with your gym battles. Take care of yourself and if I do see you again, try not to nearly die or kick me in the testicles."

I can't help but turn bright red at that. "I'll try," I say. "You take care." Before he can say otherwise, I hug him. After he's saved my life and everything, it's like the least I can do.

He walks off towards his ship to Fuchsia, boarding on the left hand side of the docks. I'm forced to stand in a queue with all these old people that talk about their honeymoons and how amazing things were before the volcano erupted and everything.

To distract myself, I let Mandy out of her poké ball. She sits on my shoulder and eyes some fat lady's fluffy scarf. I'm tempted to let her fly off, steal the scarf and drop it into the sea. Only problem is that the ship people are watching the queue and they might not let me on if they think my pokémon are trouble makers.

I pay the ticket people the money for my boat and end up on a little bus being taken there. The plank _thunks_ under my feet, sounding uncomfortably hollow. After seeing one of those creepy girls on the way to Sinnoh, I'm not exactly sure about travelling on a boat on my own, even if I didn't see one when we were leaving Snowpoint.

Since we don't have to stay in our cabins or anything and I've gotten used to the weight of my backpack, I start to wander around the ship. Mandy squawks on my shoulder, eyeing the flying wingull as she does so. I tell her to stay where she is, because I really don't want to have to stop the boat because my vullaby's gotten lost chasing pokémon across the sea.

Somehow I end up in the VIP section of the boat. Everything is all sparkly and clean and I'm pretty sure the rooms here are the size of my _house_. From what I can see through the windows, each room has a mini kitchen and a massive television that takes up almost an entire wall. Curious, I poke my head into each window as I pass it, nosing in at the people inside until I see one that makes me shriek and hide beneath the window.

Blaine's on my ship! What if I can get the badge off him when we're travelling? That would mean I could stay on the ship and go straight to Fuchsia.

I knock on his door, again and again and again until finally it swings open. The man that answers it is kind of skinny, with bright, horrible green shorts covered with blue flowers and wearing a white top covered in spaghetti sauce.

He's also my height, because he's in a wheelchair.

"What do you want?" Blaine barks at me. His beard quivers like it's alive. Judging by the way Mandy's watching it, the scruffy white thing could be a new species of pokémon. "I'm not handing out gym battles kid. If you want one, book one at the gym like everyone else."

"That's not what I'm here for!" I say before he can shut the door on me. "I mean, I am, but I'm not. I need a special badge!" I tell him as quickly as I can about the school I need the badges for. I'm pretty sure that as I talk to him he falls asleep a little. I can't tell because of the huge sunglasses on his face and I'm too scared to move them to see if he's actually still awake.

"So I was wondering if I could do the test while we're on this boat or something," I say.

"Of course, certainly. Why I let everyone who asks me so _nicely_ get a special case when it comes to completing League rules."

"Really?" I ask.

"No."

"But I've come all the way here from _Unova_ and you're here now! And I've been kidnapped by creepy hypno along the way and I've nearly been eaten by ariados so why can't you even consider it? I mean, it's not like we're going to be doing anything else on this boat."

Only after I've finished speaking do I notice he's turned as red as a fire. "You want a test? Fine. We'll do it here and now. If you cool a fiery pokémon's flames with a normal fire extinguisher, what sort of chemical is produced?"

I stare at him like he's grown a second head. "I-what?"

"Wrong." I feel like I've been stabbed. What? I didn't even get a chance to answer! How is this fair? "What are the factors you have to consider when having a fiery pokémon battle something capable of spewing fumes?"

"Urm, explosions?"

"Not good enough. If fire stones feel like there is an exothermic reaction continuously taking place, what chemical reaction could have reached equilibrium inside?"

_Does that question come in English?_ "I . . ."

"Too slow," he grunts. "Now tell me, what is the chemical responsible for all fiery pokémon's spontaneous fire production?"

I don't know! What sort of chemicals are there? I can only think of the things in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. "Bleach?" I guess.

Blaine snorts at me. "Congratulations," he says.

I feel my heart soar. "I passed?"

"Yes, you passed," he says. "You successfully proved that you are the single most unintelligent person I have ever met. You failed. Goodbye."

With that, he slams the door shut on both me and my dreams.

* * *

><p><strong><em>(AN: _**_Quick note; for anyone that's not aware, Cru now has a Facebook page! Check my profile for the link to it.)_


	22. The Final Challenger

_Dear Diary,_

_It would seem that the history of the world is not what religion and scholars would have us all believe. One saying springs to mind – 'History is written by the winners.' I cannot argue with this, yet I cannot help but wonder – is it also written by the unenlightened? _

_Much of what I have read seems to be based on the principle of Occam's razor – the simplest explanation is often the right one. Yet this changes everything. It mentions trials, tests of power that each creature had to pass before it was rewarded. In a strange way, the concept of gyms seems almost the same. A staggered challenge of power to elect a new supreme victor, stronger than any and all that came before._

_This system seems logical. It works. But what happens when something so strong breaks the system?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|The Final Challenger|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

A week on a ship goes by extremely slowly when you realise that you have nothing to do. Of course the only people that travel by ship to Cinnabar now are people on their honeymoons, older people wanting to reminisce about their honeymoons, people who study earthquakes and volcanoes and the people who want to look around Cinnabar and take pictures for recent history books.

Then there's Blaine, who after being such a complete _jerkface_ to me has stayed inside his room for the whole week that we've been on the ship.

Not that I've been watching his room, waiting for him to come out or anything.

The ship docks in a tiny little port that's about half the size of the one we left Pallet from. As I bounce along the plank, I look back and see that Blaine's room is still shrouded in darkness, as if he's a secret vampire or something. It would explain why he was so grumpy that I woke him during daylight hours. But he didn't catch fire or burn, so maybe not.

No real gates separate the main part of Cinnabar from the docks. There's a small booth with a person checking people's luggage and everything like that, but as soon as I've cleared it, I'm on a newly tarmacked road, watching a few taxis ferry people to places across the island. What's left of Cinnabar is the cooled lava from the volcano eruption. It looks almost like someone's dyed the sea black and frozen it perfectly in time. I push my boot down on it lightly and can't quite believe my eyes when it doesn't ripple and fade away beneath my touch.

The patterns are kinda pretty though. Some almost look like ancient omanyte and omastar shells I've seen in museums before. Judging by the signs, the pokémon centre is a little further into the island. I shrug and walk along the side of the road, watching for anything that might be wandering along the cooled lava. Wingull continue to caw above my head, but it's next to impossible to see a town. I let Mandy out and even she stays silent and sits on my shoulder, staring out into the empty expanses of land.

"Why's Blaine living here?" I ask her. She caws but I'm not sure if it's an answer or not. I sigh and continue walking, left with only the occasional car zooming past and the sounds of my own footsteps for company. I miss having people around. At least with them around this road wouldn't seem quite so creepy.

But I mean, this road does look like all the ones where the teenage girls walk along when they're travelling and then they get abducted by inbred mutant people and carved up into little pieces and fed to more baby mutant cannibals and -

-_That's not going to happen to me._ I take a deep breath and force myself to carry on walking. I _need_ the badge from this place. Even if I have to go sign up to the gym normally and get a badge off the cranky old man that way, I'll make sure I get one.

Because it's so empty, I can see the little town they've built well before I even reach it. Mandy caws and starts flying towards it, stopping only to look at me as if I'm confused for only being able to walk. She continues to fly forwards and backwards, stopping only when she sees a magmar walking along the dried out lava. I don't know whether she's afraid of it because it's on fire or because it's just big and ugly, but either way it doesn't bode well for Blaine's gym, if I do have to battle him.

**-O-O-O-**

The smell of ashes clings to the air in Cinnabar. I'm certain that my hair smells of smoke, but since that's pretty much all I can smell, I'm not sure if sniffing my hair will actually help me.

Abandoned, broken buildings line what used to be streets. A few people walk around now and then, but they never pay me any attention. I see just three trainers in the entire time it takes me to walk to a tower block with a bright red roof. None of them stop to battle or even to trade with me.

The tower block is apparently Cinnabar's pokémon centre. Leaflets cling to the windows, the paper bleached white from the heat of the sun. They say that they've moved here because it's one of the only buildings that were built to withstand earthquakes or volcano eruptions. There's no hint as to what it was before, but I'm guessing that people didn't live here, because when I step inside I'm pretty sure I've walked into a huge palace. Granted, one without really any decorations at all and that feels kinda lonely and haunted, but still, a palace.

I get to the desk and end up pretty much sitting on the buzzer as I wait for someone to come see me. Finally what looks like a pokémon doctor emerges from a back room, his hair a mess and imprints of a stethoscope on his neck.

"Unovan?" he guesses, pointing with his chin at Mandy. "Don't see many of your kind around here."

I don't know if I should be offended or not. "I'm here to see Blaine," I tell him.

The man snorts. "Good luck. You'll need it. Ever since he was told his legs aren't strong enough to support him, he's looked ready to murder anyone that annoys him. Now I should tell you - we're pretty basic here after the disasters. The League and the government haven't given enough money to Cinnabar to repair the main island, so everyone here happens to be either volunteers, pokémon trainers or government workers. So, we're poor and by that token, I'm afraid you're going to have to provide and cook your own food."

"Okay," I say. Normally the canteen food tastes like foot sweat anyway. Sure it's nice not to have to cook or try to figure out just how to skin this weird looking pokémon that might be poisonous if I eat the wrong thing, but I'm still pretty full from the boat, considering all I really did was eat and train my pokémon.

I also may have stolen from food from it, which I was hoping would be okay for when I was out in the wilds, but I guess I can use it here too. If I get too poor I can catch another scyther. Or a magmar. I need something that can breathe fire. If I get hungry I can just attack a few sticks with marshmallows to it. It'll be like my own personal bonfire!

Except I won't try and make it cook anything like an oven. Dad showed me what happens when you try that. It's like goodbye frozen pizza and hello forest fire.

After the pokémon centre I recall Mandy and head straight for the gym. It's covered in shiny, black reflective glass that doesn't let me see inside, which only makes me certain that the people inside are all pointing and laughing at me. I feel my heart hammering for some weird reason as I take a breath and step inside.

The air conditioning is cold and smells like apples. After the warmth of the outside, I have to dig back through my bag for a hoodie to make sure I don't freeze to death inside. Even the people inside the gym are wrapped up all warmly, though I can see a few people behind all the glass walls, walking around as quickly as they can, the tails of their labcoats trailing behind them. It's almost like Blaine wants to reassure people he does science here or something. I mean, just wearing a lab coat doesn't mean he's doing that. I wore one before and mostly I was just setting fire to things on the Bunsen burner. Though some of the metals do burn in fun colours but I could never manage to create a rainbow.

The woman behind the desk isn't wearing a lab coat, but for whatever weird reason she's wearing sunglasses indoors. I don't know how she isn't frozen with how cold it is in here, but her hair is blue, so that might just be entirely from the cold.

"I'm afraid Dr Blaine is busy for the next fortnight," she tells me after checking a few things on her computer. I watch her for signs that she's a mutant. I remember Ali telling me all about how people are adapted to their pokémon. If they work in a fire gym, usually they're used to hot temperatures. That _should_ mean that they feel cold really easily, but this woman doesn't seem to notice it at all. I think that her blazer has central heating. It must be full of teeny, tiny little radiators that keep her warm under these air conditioners that I'm pretty sure are producing snow.

"But, there aren't any other trainers here!" I protest. "How can he be that booked up already?"

"Dr Blaine isn't just a gym leader," she tells me. "He also leads the field in a lot of scientific research. Because of this, there are only a few days a month he allocates for gym battles – most trainers tend to book those dates online."

"Crap," I mutter. I should have done that when I was on the boat. It would have beaten sitting around listening to sailors talk about the sea and tentacruel-octillery mutants. "Alright," I say. "Can I get an appointment in two weeks then?"

I don't pay any attention to the doors to the gym sliding open behind me. I'm so used to pokémon centres with people running in and out of the doors all day long that the sound of people coming and going is almost like white noise.

It's only when the receptionist straightens in her chair and says, "Good afternoon Dr Blaine, sir," that I feel like my stomach has turned into a pit of writhing servine.

His wheelchair whirs as he makes it up to the reception desk. I want to pretend that he's only here because he wants to talk to one of the people that work for him, but it's hard to do that when he's staring straight at me. I'm pretty sure I can see his nostril hairs twitch as he stares at me through a pair of glasses so thick that they could be used to tell the future.

He jabs a finger at me. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Booking a battle," I say, trying hard not to be sarcastic to his face.

"I don't think so," he hisses. "Terri, I want it put on the records. This trainer is not allowed to book a battle in this gym."

"Wh-what?" I don't know whether to cry or have Cassie freeze him into a giant, grumpy block of ice. "Why?"

"Because someone as unintelligent as you should never be allowed to train pokémon." He grunts a laugh at me. "All you Unovans are the same. It's a wonder your country has managed to survive, considering you tend to breed such intellectual backsteps of evolution."

I can feel my face burning and before I can stop myself, I shout, "Well you're just grumpy because your legs are useless and you're stuck to a chair! So what if I don't know the names of all the chemicals there are! I bet if I sat in a chair all day I'd be able to remember crap too!"

I notice the receptionist trying to either hide or pretend she's not laughing out of the corner of my eye. Blaine stares at me, his eyes pinpricks and his face slowly turning purple. I'm pretty sure people shouldn't be able to turn such a colour outside of cartoons, but he's doing it.

"_Excuse me_?" he barks. "I did _not_ come here to be spoken to by some half-witted creature with the barest semblance of human intelligence."

"Well maybe you should stop looking in the mirror when you talk to yourself then."

As he turns a shade darker, I can hear Dad's voice in my head, telling me to learn when not to say something to someone.

"I'm sorry, did I give you permission to talk to me?" he grunts. "You must have an IQ of a hundred and forty or over to be in this gym."

"Then why are you here?"

I see the receptionist actually wince. Blaine's nostrils flare and I'm fairly certain steam is going to start pouring out of his ears. _"Out!"_ he screams. _"Get out of my gym!"_

From nowhere, bright white light bursts in between us. I'm treated to the sight of a ninetales that's taller than me, with fur so white it's almost like snow. Its eyes are bright blue, though as a layer of green light starts to surround me, I see the same colour in its eyes.

"Don't bother coming back here," Blaine says.

Then suddenly, I'm not in the gym anymore.

I blink and the sight of the pokémon centre's waiting room greets me. The same doctor I saw before is squatting in front of me, a box of tissues and a stress ball in his hands and being offered to me.

"I did try and warn you," he says.

I do my best not to burst into tears. It takes a considerable amount of hiccupping, swearing vengeance by the name of every god I can think of and promising myself I won't cry to stop myself from descending into a sobbing wreck. I snatch the stress ball from the doctor's hand and begin squeezing it, pretending it's Blaine's stupid face being squashed by a trash compactor until it bursts and sprays blood and grey hair everywhere.

"He's a jerk," I growl to the floor. If I look at the doctor and his sympathetic face I'm going to cry. "He called me stupid and told me that I'm not allowed to book a battle there."

"What happened after that?" he asks. "Blaine doesn't usually teleport trainers here unless they manage to offend him."

I go quiet for a moment. I try my best to pretend that if I don't say anything, the doctor will give up and go away. When he doesn't, I shrug and continue to look at the floor. "I got into an argument with him. It was his fault because he was being mean to me and I mean, I'm not going to stand there and be insulted by some cranky old creep that can't walk properly and it's not like I was completely in the wrong, because the receptionist woman was laughing."

"Breathe," the doctor tells me. "And tell me exactly what happened."

When I finish doing so, he's bright red in the face and quite obviously trying not to laugh. "Well," he says, "I can't say I'm not upset I wasn't there to see that. And you said that he forbade you from booking a battle in his gym?"

"Yeah." I nod. "He told the receptionist lady to make sure I was blocked from battling in the gym or something."

"I think there might be around that," he says. "Blaine will make sure that you're not allowed to battle in his gym, but there may be another way to get his attention. I know the receptionist you described working there today – she happens to be my girlfriend. I think I can get her to pull a few strings. If this works though, I should warn you that you're going to have to be awake before dawn."

Strangely, that makes his plan sound suddenly less appealing.

**-O-O-O-**

I sigh as I wipe my forehead and collapse into a chair. My everything hurts. The arcanine looks at me as if I am its slave, brought here to do its bidding. Since I'm not a six-foot tall canine with the ability to breathe fire and coat myself in electricity, I guess I'm forced to be its slave. I groan as I push myself out of my chair and find a bowl to pour its food into.

As I feed it, I glare at it out of the corner of my eye. Seriously, anything that can make a mountain of poop that's taller than me should not be trusted. If I ever wanted an arcanine before having to look after this freak, I am totally put off. Unless I get a slave to follow me round and pick up all the mountains of arcanine poop, I am not training one, even if it is stupidly cute and cuddly and friendly and generally pretty awesome.

Okay, so maybe I _might_ train one. But I'll house train it first!

I nearly fall out of the arcanine's room in an attempt to escape the humidity. Six weeks in this stupid gym and I'm still not used to the heat. Seriously, why does everything have to be so _hot_? I know the labs are separate so that they don't overheat, but why do I have to suffer so they can do science?

I should have volunteered to help in all the pokémon training today, but _no_, I had to volunteer to play with Mr-Poops-Mountains. I guess I can always just go back to the pokémon training again tomorrow. I've done so much of it now I could probably recite it in my sleep. Kiki and Cassie can carry on doing it every day though. They need all the training against heat they can get.

My locker looks like it wants to burst into tears with how much crap I've stuffed into it. Thanks to Greg and Terri's suggestions, I'm pretty much living at this gym. Only another month to go and then Blaine _has_ to accept any challenges I make to him for a badge. I have to fight my locker door to close it and even still, it manages to vomit out my notes onto the floor. They look plain and boring compared to the mosaic floors of the gym's locker rooms. I'm pretty sure they're recounting important battles back from when Blaine was an Elite or something, but I'm not totally sure. It's not like I can actually ask him about it – if he sees me, I'm pretty sure he'll try and throw me out of the gym again.

"Hey," Terri says as she comes into the locker room. She sees my locker, the notes on the floor and laughs as she bends down to help me. "Greg said you've been helping him occasionally at the pokémon centre?"

"Yeah," I say. "I just wanna know how to do things like heal my pokémon when I'm not around places." Mostly, I don't want to end up in another situation like the ariados. I don't exactly have Pascal around to cure me again and I don't know nearly as much as him. "I felt bad that he was teaching me and I couldn't pay him or anything, so I tried helping. I think mostly I got in the way – especially with that jynx that had a massive burn across her boobs."

"_That_ would explain why he came home with frostbite." I see her quickly try and read through what I've written down, even though she tries to hide it. "Are you studying fiery pokémon or something?"

You just read what I've written. You know full well I am. "A little," I say. "Just in case I ever get one, or just to help my pokémon try and fight them better."

"Fair enough." She hands me back my papers and I try and slide them underneath my locker's door without it giving up on life. "After you've collected your pokémon from training, can you go down to the sub-levels and check on the heat rotom? Apparently they're unhappy again and they've fried the electrics or something."

"Sure," I say. It doesn't even strike me as weird that she's sending me instead of someone that's actually dealt with them before. I mean sure, I can handle a few electrical ghosts that occasionally learn to how to spit fire or possess electrical equipment, but there are people that work here that actually _have_ rotom and can deal with them.

Maybe it just means I'm being trusted more and can do more around the gym. Or maybe it means they're going to give me one! I can have my own pokémon that can wander through walls and sometimes spit fire or water or ice depending on what it's decided to inhabit.

I pretty much skip to the training rooms and collect Kiki and Cassie's poké balls from the 'complete' rack of poké balls. The fact that they're the only ones there and the training rooms are completely empty is sort of creepy though. As I leave them, I notice that the corridors are empty and I can't hear people talking or timers going off or even the hum of all the science experiments they do. I've grown so used to hearing them that now I can't, it's like someone's removed the sound from the world.

"H-hello?" I say into the corridors. At least I can hear my voice. More than that, at least the lights aren't flickering. It's something that makes me feel a little better. I take a deep breath and continue down into the sub-levels of the gym. There are always pokémon roaming around nearby, free to do whatever takes their fancy. Yet now, there aren't any.

"Okay," I say. Either they've all learnt to turn invisible or something strange is happening. I walk through a corridor that's surrounded by glass walls on either side, showing little enclosures that are almost always full of pokémon. Each of them has a different style inside – some have rocky floors, others have grass, some have fake sunshine whilst others are completely dark. All of them have nothing inside save for loneliness and my imagination's promises of doom.

I call Mandy out of her ball and have her sit on my shoulders. It's about this time I expect Diz to show up and try and do something weird. But Mandy seems perfectly at ease, glancing round inquisitively and happily chirping away at the glass, as she always does.

When I arrive at the rotom bit, they're all still in there, sparking and floating around. They're like little red balls of energy, chasing each other around and around, cackling as they do so, discharging electricity randomly, which is sucked up by two massive lightning rods on the ceiling. I think Terri told me that they're meant to provide extra power to the gym or something.

"They don't really look unhappy, do they?" I ask Mandy. She caws, flaps her wings and jumps up and down on my shoulder. I'm not sure what it means, but I take it as her agreeing with me. "I guess I might as well just –"

"What are you _doing here?"_

I pretty much jump out of my skin at the sound of Blaine's voice. I'm torn between running for cover and just shouting at him again. It's his fault Terri's had to lie about me being here, putting me under a fake name so that he won't find me and boot me out. Just because he's a grumpy old _jerk_ doesn't mean he can do what he likes.

"I was checking the rotom," I say. "Terri said that –"

"That doesn't matter right now!" He's bright red in the face again. His wheelchair whirrs and suddenly he races towards me, like a crazy psycho killer that can't use his legs. "You need to get out of here!"

Mandy tweets and lands on his lap, staring at him straight in the eyes. He gives her an unimpressed snarl. "I don't have to go with you," I say.

"Yes you do!" He grabs my hand and somehow, his wheelchair starts going _really_ fast and I'm forced to run alongside. "Have you not realised the entire building has been _evacuated?!"_

Suddenly the fact that it's so quiet here makes a lot more sense. "Well, I didn't think it was anything bad because it's quiet."

As if on cue, a warning bell starts shrieking throughout the building. Mandy squawks in alarm and starts attacking the walls to stop it. I have to recall her before she hurts herself and really, I just want to hide in a poké ball myself because _this ringing makes my ears hurt!_

Red lights start flashing everywhere. Blaine says something but it's lost under the sounds of alarms. The ceiling above me rumbles. Dust and plaster fall down to the floor. I'm pretty sure that my stomach drops with them.

"Too late," Blaine hisses. "Come on!" he barks at me.

He doesn't grab my hand this time. I run after him, through the endless maze of corridors that look the same – all painted a dull red and with shiny, mosaic floors, blocked off with massive doors that seal airtight behind us.

I have to wait for him to swipe his card and type in a security code into one of the doors. The whole time my heart pounds. The sirens seem like they're getting louder and louder. I can't help but picture the walls turning to bugs and peeling away to reveal a massive man with huge muscles and a steel pyramid for a head like that movie Jerry made me watch.

"Stop daydreaming and follow me!" Blaine growls. I yelp and run after him, just in time for the massive steel door to shut behind me and hiss like an ekans. The room I stand in is just a massive chamber with a huge computer sat right in the middle, with rows of screens from the floor to the ceiling, all monitoring a different room in the building. Every computer shows nothing but emptiness all over the rest of the building.

"Where are we?" I ask.

"The security centre, _obviously_," Blaine growls. "This is where all the experiments, the pokémon and the people working here can be monitored. Some of our experiments involve pokémon-based studies. You think we can keep them off surveillance? The moment we shut our eyes, those crazy hippy, 'free the trapped pokémon' bastards come along and try to 'save' everything." He snorts. "Stupid inbreeds. Have they ever had immunisations? Have their family ever had medical treatments? Well guess what, sycophants, you're all _hypocrites!_ Do the world a favour and curl up and die!"

I clear my throat. "You realise there's not anyone in those screens, right?"

He growls at me. I decide it best not to say anything.

The sound of him slapping the keyboard is the only thing I can hear. This room is almost silent, the sounds of the alarms so muffled it's almost like they're coming from the other side of town, rather than right outside a set of doors. I feel myself starting to calm down just a little when the ceiling above rumbles again and I'm reminded of just how little I know of what's happening.

"Useless contraption!" Blaine shouts, punching the keyboard. He turns to me, still with a scowl on his face. "Our systems are down. The porygon network has been infiltrated and corrupted with the Z-format Trojan. Even if I called in the likes of Bill, it would still take him at least half a week to set out system straight."

Whatever he said, it doesn't sound good. "Okay. What can we do then? What's even happening?"

He sighs. "One of the chemical labs has sprung a leak. As we speak, the labs, the gym and everything in this building is flooding with a gas known as disulphyl monohydrogenase." I'm pretty sure he can see my brain waving a white flag, because he sighs and says, "It's poisonous."

"_Poisonous?"_ I shriek. I'm breathing poison. Holy crap this isn't good. I mean, what if it turns me all purple and weird or if it kills me and I'm stuck haunting this place like that freaky not-gengar? I don't want to start abducting people and nearly killing them and having to be saved by creepy girls in white dresses!

"It's contained!" Blaine says. "Right now, it's contained to this facility. We need to find a way to filter it out of here in a way that's safe. If it escapes into the air outside, then it will multiply in the air and poison all of Kanto."

I feel sick. "Is there anyone here that can do _something _about this?"

"Emergency evacuation procedures mean that everyone in the building left. Or they _should_ have done." He glares at me before quickly spinning his chair around. "We're the only people left in here. Which means we're going to have to solve this – or more accurately, _I'm_ going to have to solve this."

"Hey!" I shout at him. "I can help!" My mind goes blank as soon as he looks at me. I try my best to think of any solution. If it's a poisonous gas, that means it's just like the stuff pokémon produces. It's easier for me to think of it coming out of a pokémon, all purple and cloudy, rather than something that's invisible.

"We can't let it out of air vents," I say. "They'll just suck it straight up and into the air outside. Is there anything we can use to get rid of it? You know like in the pokémon stadiums when weezing release loads of smog and they have to clear it so that the pokémon can breathe?"

"Oh yes, that's a wonderful idea. And when the gas seeps through all the filters we have, escapes into the air outside and _chokes_ everyone to death, I suppose we can just shrug, apologise and continue on as if nothing ever happened."

"Well it's not my fault you're building some sort of super poison gas! Why would you even make something like that anyway?"

He chuckles as if I'm an idiot for asking such a question. "Look around the outside world, child. Pokémon are capable of so much more destruction than they cause. Gods only know what keeps their destructive abilities in check." Above us there's rumbling and dust falls from the ceiling again. "We've done much to offend the pokémon world. More than should have ever been done to it. If they were to rise up and attack, they could not be faulted. Yet we will also not let them do so without any resistance." He presses a few buttons on the computer and they start displaying some sort of weird chemical thing with all blobs and sticks and adult words written alongside. "This was designed as a worst-case scenario. A poison so deadly that it could even kill poisonous pokémon and those that have no respiratory system. If it gets out now, it will sweep across the continents and destroy all sentient life, simply because we haven't had the time to tweak it to not attack humans."

"That's so stupid I'm amazed you're even alive right now," I say.

He snorts, apparently still not impressed. "The reasons don't matter now. We need to find a way to rid the air of these poisons. The best way would be to lock the building down, closing the ventilation and stopping any air from leaving or entering. From there we can create a vacuum to pull all the poisoned air to an incinerating room, cut off from the rest of the air supply. When it's clean to breathe again, we can switch on the ventilation once more."

I nod as if I understand what he says. Mostly I just get the mental image of trying to hoover up the air and then setting the hoover on fire.

Blaine spins around in his chair and hands me a blank white card. "Use this," he says gruffly. "The passcode is one-nine-nine-six. You'll have to make certain you've put on a breathing apparatus before you activate it though."

"Okay?" I say, barely holding onto the card. "Why have you given me this? Where am I supposed to go and what's a breathing apparatus?"

He sighs and shoves a tablet into my hands, presses a button and suddenly I'm looking at the room I'm standing in. I spin around, look at the ceiling and again to the tablet, see myself staring at the device in my hands and look up again, searching for the hidden camera.

"Don't bother," Blaine says. He reaches up and presses a headset down on my head. "The cameras are too small for you to be able to see." His voice comes through twice. Once normally and once as a robotic buzz in the headset. I can't even see a microphone and yet somehow, everything he says is picked up perfectly. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm in a wheelchair. The fate of the world rests on your shoulders. Try not to doom it."

"Can I least borrow some of your pokémon?" I ask.

"No." He spins around in his chair and faces the computer screens again. "I don't have them on me. Emergency protocols dictate that in such a situation, all pokémon are to be evacuated from the building. This gym is filled with pokémon that naturally produce fire. Most of the chemicals manufactured here are flammable. If any of them met, the entire building, if not the island would explode." He looks over his shoulder. "Do we look like we have all day? Get _moving!_ I'll direct you from here – please prove my estimates of your stupidity wrong."

I'm tempted to just throw everything at his stupid face and let him get poisoned to death, just because he's a jerk. But if he's right, I can't really make the world all choke to death just because he's an assbag.

"Fine," I growl. "Where am I going?"

"Back out the doors we came in, obviously. Do you see any air vents in here? Do air vents look big enough for you to crawl around in? One wrong move and you'd be stuck, leaving us completely screwed. Now get going!"

"Whatever," I hiss. The doors open as I approach them and shut not a second after I make it through. The alarms aren't blaring anymore. All that's happening now is that the lights are flashing red. They spiral round and around like police lights, basking the corridors in a horrible glow that I'm sure I've seen in a horror movie somewhere.

"_Did I say to stand there like a moron?"_ Blaine hisses into my ear. I want nothing more than to drop this stupid headset into a lake. I check the tablet and I can see myself on one of the monitors, looking as confused as I feel. _"The automatic filters should have kicked in. That means the air you're breathing isn't poisonous, but we've got perhaps fifteen minutes until the gas starts leaking into the outside world."_

"Alright," I say nervously. "Where am I going?"

"_On the ground floor, head to the equipment room. The first set of locks to override is in there."_

I make a face in his general direction as I start moving. "Why does there have to be more than one set of locks?" I whine.

"_Because otherwise any idiot with a high-leveled security pass could shut everything down. Rather like you are now."_

"I hope your brakes stop working when you're going downhill."

"_Stop talking and wasting our time."_

I hiss, tuck the tablet under my armpit and start running. The lights continue to flash, but no sound ever comes. All the rooms I pass are deserted. I see the enclosures where pokémon used to be. Now they're filling up with a fog that I'm sure shouldn't be there.

Predictably, the elevator isn't working. No matter how many times I press the button, it stays stuck between floors, continually tormenting me. Of course, the moment I try the stairs, I find the stairwell shrouded in complete darkness.

"_What are you waiting for?"_ Blaine barks into my ear. _"These aren't escalators! The only way to get up them is to move!"_

"It's _dark_ in here!" I shout back. My voice bounces all the way through the stairwell and returns twice as loud. I wince and start running up the stairs as quickly as I can, half-dragging myself up with the banister. "I'd like to see you wheeling yourself through an obstacle course in the dark."

"_I was married once. It's the same thing."_

I don't know what to say back to that, so instead I keep quiet. My lungs feel like they're burning as I reach the door I need, 'Ground' illuminated in glow in the dark paint. I have to yank it open with all of my strength. When I do, a rush of warm air runs out to greet me. The headset crackles in my ears. The lights are still red up here, but they're flickering on and off, on and off, on and off.

I swallow the fear I feel and run in the general direction of the equipment room. Blaine doesn't say anything in my ears as I run. I stop briefly, check the tablet to make sure he's still alive and rush as fast as I can. When I get there, the door is hanging off its hinges. Finger-shaped drag marks are painted on the floor, as red as the lights flashing on the walls. I don't even let my brain begin to think about what or who made them.

"I'm here," I say, looking around. When he said equipment room, I thought it would be a little closet with mops and brooms. Instead it's a room bigger than most pokémon gyms, filled with all sorts of machinery with flashing lights. A few of them hiss, spitting out random, angry metallic sounds.

"_Finally. Did you stop for tea on the way? The machine you're looking for is in the far north-east corner. It should have 'auxiliary ventilation' written on it."_

"Okay," I say. Bits and pieces of paper are scattered over the floor. A mop handle lies in two broken pieces, the bucket kicked and water spilt over the floor. A machine hangs from the wall on my left, sparking angrily as if it wants to electrocute me.

I find the machine I need, swipe Blaine's card into the reader and put in the code he needs. After he tells me what to press – and not without being more of a jerk, I hear something that sounds like metal doors unlocking.

"_Good," _he says. _"Now select the option to bypass second authentication and switch off the air systems."_

I frown as my finger stops over the button on the screen. "But I thought you said that there were two access points to this? Why would you have them both on the same machine?"

His sigh fills my ears with static. _"Because I am the person in charge. Of course I am going to be able to re-write rules in place. Now do what I tell you, unless you want everyone you know to die from asphyxiation in the next week."_

"Okay, okay!" I shriek. I follow his commands and manage not to blow anything up. As soon as I hit the button, the sounds of fans whirring in the background stops. After six weeks here, they've become like white noise to me. Now I can't hear them, the silence is deafening. I gulp, pull my stupid red shirt tighter around myself and try my best not to curl up in a corner. "Now what?"

"_You need a breathing apparatus. There should be some nearby the cat-4 labs."_

"What are they?"

I've never known anyone that can make breathing sound angry. _"Laboratories in which workers handle samples that are so dangerous, the room has to be airtight and they have to wear protective equipment at all times. Those on the first floor are the ones from which this gas has escaped. After you get a breathing apparatus, you need to go to my office on the top floor, find the laptop hidden underneath the desk and start the vacuum protocol."_

"Okay," I say. "I can do that."

"_One thing."_ He sounds deadly serious now. The tone of his voice makes me more nervous than the emptiness of the gym. _"If you can't activate the vacuum protocol, or if the gas begins to escape, there is only one option left. On the laptop is a purge protocol. If there are no other options left, you will need to activate that."_

"Alright," I say uncertainly. "What will that do?"

He's silent for a long moment. Finally he whispers, "It will burn this place and everything in it to the ground."

"_What?"_ I scream at him. "Why would I want to do that? I don't want to turn into a fireball!"

"_It's the only option left!"_ he shouts back. _"If this gas escapes, the world will die. You and I are all that's left between normality and world destruction. I can activate it from here if I need to, but if something happens, you will need the strength to do what needs to be done."_

"Your plan sucks," I tell him. "I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do the whole vacuuming up the air thing and then we're going to be fine, you're going to stop being such a jerk and then I can get my badge off you."

In fact, I'm certain that's exactly how things are going to happen.

Right up until the moment I see the remains of the cat-4 labs and discover the cause of the ceiling constantly rumbling.

"Urm, Blaine?" I whisper. "There's a problem. A _big_ problem."

"_I can see that! What do you think I am? Blind?"_

"Stop shouting!" I hiss at him. I duck behind a corner, breathing heavily. If I'm lucky, it hasn't seen me. I inch my face out and spy it stood in amongst the wreckage, apparently happy with its work. I've never seen a rhydon in anything but television. Now one is standing not even ten feet away from me, I can understand why people are just a little bit afraid of them. "Has it seen me?"

"_Not yet. But there are bigger concerns right now. It has managed to trash one of the labs that was housing a modified version of the pokérus. When grounded pokémon are exposed to it, they suffer from increased aggression, confusion and eventual death if left untreated."_

"Then can't I just leave it to die?" I ask. "At least then I won't have to worry about it stepping on me."

"_You can't!_" he hisses at me. _"That rhydon belonged to Giovanni before he was arrested. It was part of his championship team. It cannot be allowed to die. It's far too valuable. You must subdue it. But do not destroy the labs! We can't let anything else escape!"_

"Why is it even still here?" I mutter. "I thought everything had evacuated?"

Blaine doesn't answer me. I want to push him out of his chair and leave it just slightly out of his reach so he can never crawl back inside. I take a deep breath as I watch the rhydon. It isn't doing much. It just stands there, looking angry. The moment I let any of my pokémon out, it's going to go crazy.

How am I meant to stop it from destroying stuff?

I've only got the start of a plan when I leap out from behind my corner and throw a poké ball at it. It smacks it in the head, fizzles out and does nothing more than stun it for a moment. That moment is enough.

"Kiki!" I shout as she bursts out of her ball. "Seed it around the legs!"

Tens of tiny little yellow seeds explode out of her mouth and smack into the stunned rhydon's legs. It throws back its head, roars and begins to charge just as the seeds sprout vines and tangle around it. It hits the floor with a heavy enough thud to throw me into the air for a moment.

"Cover it in cotton," I say as it struggles. Kiki makes loads of the little spores that flood around it and cling to its rough, scaly body. The vines continue to constrict, making it weaker and weaker still. Finally Kiki just runs at it and smacks it again and again and again until finally it stops struggling and sinks into unconsciousness.

"Good work," I say. It doesn't look like much is damaged, except for maybe all of the floor. "Blaine?" I pull out the tablet and press a few buttons. He's still sat there, in front of the computer, but I can see more and more dust falling from the ceiling.

"_Is it still alive?"_ he asks.

"Yeah, Kiki knocked it out." I tap it on the side of the head to make certain. Kiki growls at me, swats my foot away and shoos me like she's my parent. "My maractus. She beat it into unconsciousness."

"_Good,"_ Blaine says. More and more dust falls down around him. The floor starts to vibrate. I see what looks like a chunk of plaster fall down and smash on the floor behind him. _"Get a body suit from the lab. Put it on and activate the vacuum protocol."_

"Urm, Blaine?" I poke the tablet. It doesn't help him notice the fact that the ceiling is _falling down around him_. "Get out of there! The ceiling looks like it's about to come down!"

"_Don't be stupid!"_ he barks. He looks up. _"It's perfectly – oh."_

It's at that moment that the rest of the ceiling collapses and the video feed cuts out completely.

"Blaine?" I tap the screen. Nothing happens. "Blaine? _Blaine!"_

I drop the tablet on the floor, barely registering the sound it makes as it breaks. "Blaine's dead," I tell Kiki. She looks almost like she's upset. "The ceiling fell on him. It fell on him and it's all our fault because we tripped that rhydon and it broke the floor and then it fell on Blaine and –"

- The needles that slap my arm are insanely painful. I scream and flinch away. Kiki tutters something and begins to walk towards the wreckage of the lab. I feel my whole body shake. Blaine's dead. He's dead and it's my fault. It's like Craig all over again, except I watched Blaine die.

Kiki looks at me and growls. I flinch and begin to follow after her. Blaine wanted me to make sure I can save everyone. If he's died with that hope, I've got to at least make sure I can see it through.

"Where are the breathing suits?" I ask Kiki. She looks around, confusion evident. She picks up stuff at random, showing it to me as if it might be of any use. As helpful as she's trying to be, the fact that she thinks a test tube might help me breathe is slightly worrying.

It's only when she points out the tattered rags of a body suit and empty oxygen tanks that I realise there's nothing left for me to wear.

"It's alright," I say, starting to panic. "You're a grassy pokémon. I make sure you get lots of sunlight, which means that you produce lots of oxygen. All I need to do is make sure we lock ourselves in a room somewhere and then we can both survive."

She doesn't quite manage to meet my eyes. I kick the rhydon in its side as we pass it again. The pain from stubbing my toe against it is the thing I can blame my tears on. I wipe my nose as we walk up the stairs to the top floor. If I start crying, I'm not going to be able to stop. I have to find a way to stop this, because I've killed Blaine.

What are my parents going to say when they find out?

"Don't tell my parents about this?" I plead. Kiki gives me a look I can't quite understand. "They don't need to know," I tell her. "They'll shout and then they'll go all quiet and be disappointed in me or something. I don't want them to know and have to visit me in prison all the time. If we don't tell them, no one will ever know."

She says something I don't understand. I pretend it's her promising to keep my secret. The red lights are still flashing, somehow duller than before when we reach the top floor. All there is up here is a single corridor with an electronically locked door at the end. I swipe Blaine's card into the reader and it springs wide open.

The office looks like it's never been used. I'm pretty sure I've seen the exact same design in all the home renovation stores I've seen.

"He's got to have a panic room in here," I say. There's a set of double doors that lead straight into an emergency elevator. If he has them, he has to have some sort of airtight room. "We can hide in that whilst everything happens and then we can get rid of the poison, right?"

Kiki points at a display on the wall. I know she can't read, but that fact that it's pulsing with bright red letters must be a universal sign for Bad Things Happening.

'_Air saturation levels critical,'_ it says, _'purge protocol required.'_

I swallow and look away. "It's just the time," I tell Kiki. She doesn't seem to believe me. I shove Blaine's desk chair out of the way and watch it zoom across the room. Sure enough, hidden underneath the desk is a trap door. Within, I find a battered old laptop that I'm sure is older than I am.

My hands shake as I try and open it. No matter how much I try, I can't bring myself to do it.

Kiki stands behind me, like my silent, deadly shadow, as she always does. I bite my lip and try my best not to cry. "It's just saying the time," I say as she looks at the glowing red warning again.

The sound she makes lets me know she doesn't believe me in the slightest.

I let Mandy and Cassie out of their poké balls. It doesn't seem right to do this without them here. They seem to know something's wrong instantly. Mandy sits on my shoulders and spreads her wings around my head. She rubs her cheeks against my hair, chirping softly. Cassie sits in my lap and continues to try and bury herself in the pockets of my shirt. The red flashing lights make my shirt seem the colour of blood.

_Will it hurt?_

I try not to think about anything like that as I open the laptop. I slot Blaine's card into the side and put in the code when the screen tells me to. It flicks over to a new black screen filled with four lines of text.

'_Commence vacuum protocol?_

'_Y/N_

'_Commence purge protocol?_

'_Y/N'_

My hands shake as I highlight the purge protocol. I can't let this gas out into the world. People will choke to death. Ali, Jerry, my parents will all die and I could have stopped it.

_Will they miss me?_ I wonder. _Or will they hate me for leaving them?_

"I'm sorry," I whisper, to myself, my pokémon and anyone that will listen.

But no matter how much I know I have to, I can't press the enter button. One little button and I'll save the world. One little button and I'll kill me and my pokémon in a massive ball of fire.

"I can't," I sob. "I can't do it."

Kiki touches my shoulder. Then she leans over me, offers me a smile and hits the enter key.

For a moment, nothing happens. It's like the eye of the storm and I'm waiting for the inevitable to happen.

Then the elevator doors open behind me and a chorus of applause breaks out.

I scream and fall onto the floor in a pile with my pokémon. People I've seen in the gym, Greg and Terri and Mr-Poops-Mountains the arcanine all come out of the elevator with wide grins on their faces.

Impossibly, in the middle of all of them is Blaine. I know I must have died because he's smiling as he wheels himself towards me.

"Congratulations," he says. "You passed."

I can't manage to say anything more than a half-breed of a grunt and a sob.

"I'm being forcibly retired next week," he continues, oblivious. "The League said my methods were too extreme. Apparently kids can't be exposed to actual, life-threatening situations or psychological trauma. If they can't suffer that, then how are they supposed to survive in the real world?" He laughs at a joke I never heard told. "So you were my last challenger. I had to pull out all the stops with you. That gas I mentioned? It doesn't exist. All of this was your challenge, trainer. To prove that you can take knowledge you've gained and instructions you've been given and apply them in a stressful situation that may put you in the ultimate danger.

"And I can happily say that you passed and are now one step closer to your dream."

I look between each of them, take in their smiling faces and do the only thing that seems logical in such a situation.

I burst out crying.


	23. Fallout

_Dear Diary,_

_The trials apparently begin with a test of character. The research says that each and every challenger has met a different challenge. Some saw visions, others were put into impossible moral dilemmas. Those that passed face the next challenge. Those that failed were often lost to the physical world._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Fallout|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

"I guess this explains why the League thinks that I should retire. _Pah!_ What do those _politicians_ even know? They're so incompetent they'd get mauled to death by a _natu!_"

Everything goes quiet. I manage to sniff and wipe my nose as I continue to hug Cassie. Blaine's a fiery person. He won't want to go near a creature that's almost pure ice. Mandy continues to sit on my shoulder and Kiki just looks like she doesn't know whether she should feel guilty or fill Blaine full of holes.

When I manage to find my voice, I mutter, "They're right." If it's even possible, the room grows even quieter and somehow, it makes me forget all the fear and the sheer _horror_ about what's happened and instead I'm just _angry_.

"You're a _jerk!_" I say with as much venom as I can. Cassie goes as far as spitting ice on the floor to make my point. "What kind of creepy old man does something like that to someone? Did your doctor tell you that you're going to die and then laugh and say it was all a joke or something? Or is this all because you're angry because your legs are useless and you're stuck in a chair?"

I hear the sharp intake of breath from the crowd, but honestly at this point, I don't even care. I leap to my feet and stomp up to Blaine, red-faced as he is, sitting in his stupid chair. "You think you're so smart just because you can invent all these sparkly things that don't do anything but show how smart you are to other scientists. Then all you do is sit around and think of ways to scare kids just to make you feel better! Why are you even allowed to still be alive, you big _jackass?"_

He takes a deep breath. Breathes out. Takes another breath before gritting his teeth and saying, "I understand that you're upset right now –"

"_Upset?"_ I shriek in his face. "I was upset when I thought I was gonna _die!_ Now I know I'm alive and you set this all up I want to push you into traffic and watch you try and outrun a lorry!" I stop myself from shoving him because honestly, shoving someone who can't use his legs is maybe a bit _too_ mean, and even if he's a cruel, insensitive jerk, I don't have to be too. "And I can't believe the rest of you played along with this!" Even Mr-Poops-Mountains looks a little ashamed. Good. I can't believe they were all in on this!

"I don't even _want_ your stupid badge anymore! I don't want anything to do with _any_ of you! I hope your stupid lab burns down for _real_ with _all_ of you in it! And when it does, I'll just sit outside and roast marshmallows on the fire as you all scream and beg and say that you wish you'd never been so cruel!"

Blaine just sits there now, his arms folded. Everyone else has a multitude of expressions, but somehow I get the feeling they've all heard this before.

"Are you quite finished now?" Blaine asks.

"No –"

"Good," he says before I can finish. "Now you've had your self-righteous speech, listen and let me speak for a moment. Pokémon training is difficult. Any fool can go out into the wilds with a stick and a poké ball, claim a beast for themselves and call themselves a trainer. Any half-wit can get themselves killed by being too stupid to follow basic instructions. Let me ask you something, girl. How many times have you brushed with death on your journey so far?"

I manage a shrug, even though I can feel my shoulders shaking. Mandy's given up with sitting on them, instead nestling on the floor, next to Kiki, almost as if her presence is holding her back from doing something violent and totally justified.

"A few times," I say, vaguely.

"More than you care to think about," Blaine says. "Understandable. Now tell me – did your school ever teach you how to deal with any situation like that?"

"No –"

"Precisely," he says, interrupting me again. "Now what I've done here is taught you a lesson you're unlikely to ever forget. Sooner or later, you will come into a situation where you're forced to make a sacrifice. It might be something simple – abandon your camp and all the food you've made because hostile pokémon have swarmed you. It might be something hard – do you abandon a pokémon you've trained for weeks, months or even years, simply so you have the chance to live another day? Or it could be something almost impossible – do you sacrifice your own life, so others that you love can live?

"_That_ is a major aspect of being a pokémon trainer," he grunts. "You cannot sit there and claim to be the best trainer if you are unwilling to make harsh choices. This test showed that you can take knowledge you have gathered and apply it in impossible, highly stressful situations. A pokémon trainer needs to think on their feet. You need to be able to make decisions and weigh the outcomes in a fraction of the time any person with a normal job needs to. You think surgeons can sit around and deliberate on the pros and cons of each cut when someone is bleeding to death on their table?"

"I get that," I say, "but you could have given me _some_ warning or something."

"And how often do you get an advanced warning when you're in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by things that are capable of tearing open your skull or burning you from the sky?" He winces as Cassie blows a cold breath over him, shivers and pulls the sleeves of his jumper out from underneath his lab coat, covering his hands. "My methods are perverse. Cruel even. But they get results. If you don't like it, tough shit. You passed, regardless of your feelings towards what happened. Today, you have proved that you are capable of being a strong trainer. You retain the presence of mind to think, even when everything is falling down around you."

He smiles. It's unnerving. "You've got the potential to go far as a trainer. Never stop learning, even if it's something you don't find interesting and not only will you be smarter than the rest, but you'll probably be one of the best."

He holds out my pokédex. I don't even think to ask him how he got it as I take it and see my information updated, with his badge staring back at me from the screen. Three badges now and somehow, he's divided it up so the ones I need for my school are listed separately.

"Try some other gyms too," he tells me. "You've gained the badge from Roark and I, but we're not testing your pokémon's combat abilities. Thus far you've only gained one from Pewter in such a way. With a pokémon like your maractus, it isn't much of a challenge. Keep pushing yourself. You'll fall countless times, but so long as you don't give up, you'll reach the top."

I manage to smile, just a little. "Thanks," I say, sliding my pokédex into my pocket. "I still haven't forgiven you though."

He actually laughs. "I'd be offended if you had. You're not as incompetent as I've said you are. Now get out of my gym, travel the world and go far. If I find out you've done anything less than reach the top, I'll find you and force you to shovel arcanine shit for another week."

I can't help but look at Mr-Poops-Mountains. It's weird enough that he's here, watching us, but it's even weirder that the crowd have remained here the entire time, silent enough that I've forgotten they've watched this entire conversation. The tips of my ears begin to turn red as I think about how much they've seen and heard.

"I don't like it when you're being nice," I tell Blaine. "It's weird."

"I know," he says. "And I think it's made me develop diabetes."

I'm surrounded by everyone as they congratulate me. Apparently Blaine manages to give off some secret smell that lets people know when they can approach and celebrate. All their words fall flat. Everything looks like it's either a blur or a vague shade of grey. I feel like I'm going to be sick. Kiki looks equal parts ashamed and horrified. I want to tell her that I don't blame her – that I'm happy she did what I couldn't. I never would have thought that in that year Dad trained her for me, he'd managed to have her pick up basic things like pushing buttons on computers. But I can't reach her through the crowd. Instead she remains skulking in a corner, nearby and yet far away at the same time.

"How long have you guys been planning this?" I ask Greg and Terri. They shrug, almost like they're one person. With Greg's arm tucked around Terri's waist and hers around his, I can totally believe they're secretly conjoined twins that can remove themselves at will.

"Since just before you came in demanding to book a gym battle," Terri admits. "Blaine said you weren't subtle about trying to follow him on the boat here. He wanted to see if you had the commitment to obtaining a badge before giving you the chance to earn one."

"We did argue that his methods have gotten a bit more … _extreme_ lately," Greg says, "but there isn't much that can dissuade Blaine about something once he's made his mind up."

I nod without even truly listening to what he's saying. Mandy's sat with Kiki, watching everyone and I'm pretty sure Cassie is following Blaine and trying to freeze the brakes of his wheelchair. Even though I'm in the middle of a crowd of people, I'm struck by a sense of loneliness. None of them really stopped to think about me in this whole thing – they were more than happy to let Blaine carry on with his crazy plans. My pokémon would have forced him to think of another way. Ali would have shouted at him, Jerry would have gone all protective big brother and I'm pretty sure Pascal would have just had his blue serperior eat everyone. Or at least I hope he would have.

"I think I need some fresh air," I tell them. "I don't really want to stay down here any longer."

"Take the elevator!" Blaine tells me, wheels screeching as he slides to a stop. Cassie cackles from behind him and races around the crowd to hide next to the lift before he can see her. "It leads from here straight to the labs or to the entrance. I take it you still retain the mental functions to press a button going up, correct? Or will your pokémon have to do that for you, too?"

I have to take a deep breath to stop myself from either shouting at him or crying again. He's given me the badge, I tell myself. It's enough. Now I never have to come back to this stupid place again. I hope the volcano erupts again whilst they're all out at sea, so all they can do is watch as all their stuff melts into a big pile of goo.

"Thanks," I manage to say as the crowd parts for me. Kiki glares at everyone as she walks towards me. Cassie chortles, still waiting by the side of the lift, whilst Mandy takes the chance to land on my shoulder, chirping away as if she has something important to say.

It's only when I stand in the lift that I manage to relax and let my brain try and catch up with everything. I don't know whether I should start crying again or swear bloody vengeance on Blaine.

"What do you guys think?" I sigh, looking towards my pokémon. Kiki just shrugs and stares at herself in the mirror. Many looks thrilled by the fact she can see herself and sits on the little railing next to the mirror, staring with one beady eye. Cassie is the only one who apparently even realises she's just staring at a reflection of herself, so instead she chitters something I can't understand, though it does manage to freeze my socks.

"I really need Diz around," I mutter as I press the up button. "At least he manages to translate for you guys."

The lift makes a humming sound as it starts to go up. I realise quickly that the walls are in fact, large windows. Apart from the doors and the mirror opposite, I'm stood in a glass box and watching everything zoom past. I don't know if it's to help them watch experiments or something creepier, but I can't help but find it the slightest bit fascinating.

At least until the lift stops when we pass an abandoned laboratory.

"I hate this place," I mutter, just as the lights go out.

A spotlight shines in the lab. Beakers spill liquid, even though nothing pours into them. Test tubes roll over the sides and the Bunsen burners have flames that burn blue, red, green and then purple, cycling round and round again. Part of the ceiling has fallen down and I can watch the way water flows out of the pipes, over the pieces of ceiling that lay on the floor and forms huge puddles.

The spotlight flickers. All the hair on my arms stand on end. A shiver races down my spine. Somehow I know what's about to happen.

The spotlight goes out. When it comes back on, another little blonde girl in white stands in the lab, her back towards me. Her hair curls down to her shoulders. Even though I know it shouldn't be possible, I can hear her humming, but the tune is unfamiliar.

The Bunsen burners flare. Blue, red, green and purple. A little girl stands in front of each one, the fire burning up to the ceiling, obscuring their faces. They wave their hands through the flames and the humming seems to start making the walls of the lift vibrate.

"_He watches you sleep~"_ sings the one with her back to me.

"_He hears you breathe~" _sing the rest.

A flicker appears in the lift. I scream and fall into the wall. Two of the little girls stand in front of me. Instead of faces, they just have huge, gaping mouths filled with row upon row of sharp little fangs. They laugh. Kiki hisses and leaps at them. She passes straight through them, but they don't flicker like in the movies. It's not even like they're ghosts.

I don't know what they are, but the fact that Kiki saw them to attack them, that Mandy is chirping wildly and Cassie is hugging my leg means I'm not the only one that can see them.

"_He watches you sleep, he hears you breathe."_

The two little girls flicker and suddenly appear, one on each side of me. _"And he's the one you fight for it all,"_ they whisper into my ears.

The lights in the lift burst back into life. I hiss as they burn into my eyes and make me see spots. My heart races like I've just ran a marathon. I know they're not going to be there when I open them, but I still peek out from behind the cover of my fingers. The lift is empty, save for me and my pokémon.

We start moving again, this time in the other direction. I don't even think to question it when the lift deposits us back in the reception room of the gym.

Instead I just race out of the building, my pokémon following me, and leap out of the doors and into blessed daylight and sunshine.

The only problem is that even with the sun beating down on me and bouncing off the gym's glass windows, I still feel strangely cold.

I turn my head and look back at the gym. "I'm so never coming back here again."


	24. Every Rose

_Dear Diary,_

_After the test of character comes a test of intellect. One would think this would be the easiest to conquer. How can one measure intellect with a single test, after all? To be smart from books is not the same as to have gained knowledge from practical experience._

_From the accounts of those that have passed, the closest approximations to these tests are riddles. But even then, some were based on observation and extrapolation data. One was simply asked, 'what is the answer to the question?' It sounds impossible, but it has been beaten before. When I go up against them, I am confident they will be beaten again._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Every Rose|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

Gym leaders are _jerks_.

I mean seriously, how can they call themselves masters or even trainers if all they do is make my pokémon so ill they vomit all over the stadium floor? Not to mention the stuff that came out of the other end.

I'm glad I don't have to clean up that arena. Serves them right. And then Janine is all _'you need to make sure you are prepared for any sort of attack - be it physical, or be it something our eyes cannot see.'_

Well excuse me Miss I'm-A-Ninja-But-Wear-Bright-Purple, I didn't think that making pokémon throw up everywhere was exactly a thing I could use to get away from them. I don't think rampaging steelix that want to _eat_ me are going to be concerned by a little bit of vomit.

Actually, given how huge they are, I wouldn't be surprised if they manage to make something the size of a house.

Anyway, my point stands. Janine is a horrible, dirty cheat and it's only because Kiki needs training against poisonous creatures that I've left my pokémon at the gym to train for a little while.

I sigh as I realise I'm left with nothing really to do in Fuchsia now. The thought of shopping is enough to bore me to tears and signs that I'm pretty sure are older than me are still up on lampposts and billboards, advertising the old Safari Zone. Instead now it's some sort of weird arena where you're able to transport pokémon instantaneously across whole continents, but it's different to the Global Trading Station because this one technically releases the pokémon first. Apparently most of the time it's used by families who want to make certain their kid or whoever they're giving the pokémon to is capable of handling it, rather than just outright donating it to them. Which is fine and all … until you remember that there are wild _tyranitar_ wandering around in there now because people couldn't catch them.

I should catch myself a tyranitar.

With nothing else to do, I wander down towards the beach. The sun shines down and all the sand is brilliantly white - despite the fact that I can see trainers and their pokémon battling each other. Some are even spilling into the sea and onto the land, though they're all careful to avoid the cordoned off area for non-trainers. Given that there are two rangers on each side of the barriers, both with pretty _huge_ pokémon - I can see a nidoqueen and king, a slowbro and I'm pretty sure the lapras that's only half in the sea belongs to one of them too - I can see why the trainers are eager to avoid them. Little signs say that the rangers aren't allowed to accept challenges from anyone whilst on duty, but apparently once their shifts have finished, they often join in and kick everyone's butts.

Well considering I don't actually have my pokémon on me, it would be kinda pointless for me to even consider challenging them anyway. I sigh and make my way down the beach, blissfully ignored by all the tourists and overlooked by all the pokémon trainers. It's like somehow they know when you have pokémon on you – and somehow even more so when your pokémon are hurt. I swear they swoop in out of nowhere when that happens.

Bored of the beach (and mostly trying to avoid the tentacool that I can see trying to creep onto shore), I end up making my way up to and along the pier. Stalls sell cotton candy that look like big fluffy whimsicott and smell like burnt sugar, popcorn that has to be the size of my head and there's a sad looking clown that I'm fairly certain will get arrested at some point in his career because he just _looks_ creepy.

I can hear people screaming as they go round the little Ferris wheel at the end of the pier. I mean, seriously, have they not even seen the one in Unova? It's like three times the size and goes at least ten times as fast. Though I suppose it's better than the people that decide to keep kissing whenever they go on one. If I ended up above them, I would so somehow throw up on them.

I give up thinking of things to do and instead buy a bag of fresh donuts and sit at the end of the pier, swinging my legs over the water as I begin eating my way through them. They're coated in cocoa powder and cinnamon, just the way I like them – and the way that Jerry hates so I always got to eat more.

From here I can see Seafoam. The Articuno is supposed to live there, according to legends. And apparently there were a tribe of people that never felt the cold and could wander out in snowstorms, wearing nothing more than a loincloth and never freeze to death. I'm not sure how certain people can be about that though, because aren't the bodies they use to establish those facts generally dead, in loincloths and died through freezing?

But anyway, apparently the Articuno is one of the only pokémon that can solidify the air around it just by being somewhere. When it sheds feathers, they're supposed to be pure ice, but unable to melt in even the hottest of deserts. People keep saying that it used to guard the pokémon and people that lived in the ancient Seafoam Islands, protecting them from the cold. Obviously it didn't like all of them, because then otherwise we wouldn't be finding their dead bodies.

At first, I don't pay any attention to the little girl that sits at the end of the pier nearby. At least, that is until she unfolds a textbook that has to weigh as much as her and begins reading it. From what I can see, it's all about the Articuno, complete with little scribbles that might be traces from cave paintings or something.

She sees me looking and smiles a wide, gap-toothed grin. "I want to see the Articuno," she tells me, tucking a strand of bright ginger hair behind her ear. She wears bright purple glasses that make her eyes seem tiny, almost like she's always squinting. "My dad saw it once. He even took a picture of it. It's the one that all the papers in Sinnoh were using – they _stole _it from him!" She pouts and begins to turn red. "Daddy says he doesn't mind, but I've told him that when I find them I'm going to replace their eyeballs with ice cubes."

She says it with such perky enthusiasm that I can't help but grin. "I have a snorunt," I offer, "she seems like she might enjoy getting to do that."

The girl smiles at me. "I'd rather use a jynx. They're weird and creepy-pretty and imagine if the last thing you saw was their frozen blue face?"

I picture it and shudder. I'm pretty sure Dad was watching a horror film to do with one of them. I remember that it was outside some guy's apartment, staring in through the window and frosting it over. Then he saw me watching and hurried me out of the room, telling me it was a grown up's film and it was too scary for me. Though it was after Mum and him had argued and he was sleeping on the sofa, so I don't get why he would want to watch scary films alone?

I shake the thoughts out of my head. "I don't want to see one of those before I die," I say, frowning. "Do you even know how jynx became pokémon?"

The girl shakes her head, nearly knocking her glasses from her face. "Nope. Do you?"

"Jynx are pokémon born out of people. Back before humans built large towns, they used to worship a great number of different gods for everything. The sun, the moon, even crops had a separate god. I guess people kinda still do, with the Groudon and Kyogre and everything. Anyway, they used to make sacrifices to the gods - pokémon and people to make their gods happy. Everywhere did it differently too.

"In the colder places, they used to sacrifice women to the god of summer, in order for him to bring a sunny summer for their crops." It's fun to see just how enraptured the girl is. She sits there with her mouth wide open, transfixed. I offer her a donut and she takes it, though she just holds it next to her mouth, as if she can't remember how to eat anymore. "It's always blonde haired women, for some reason. They made them wear a long red dress, and they'd fit them with a jewelled bra that simply framed their boobs. Then they got drugged, put in a cave, sealed in and left to die.

"After a few centuries, but eventually their spirits would be able to return and form something that looked like their body when they died. The main difference is that their eyes are completely white, and their skin is a horrible shade of purple. And it's said that they continue to haunt the locations of their death, eternally searching for a body to inhabit."

I grin at the way she gasps in horror. "It's why people think jynx have the most similar method of communication to humans – they're the only ones who we can actually understand when they're not using telepathy."

"Wow!" the girl gushes, awed. She takes a bite of her donut and quite happily lets the crumbs drop all over her book. "That's so cool! Where did you learn that?"

I shrug. "I just read a few things when I got bored. I want to study history when I grow up."

"That's so cool!" she practically begins vibrating. "So do I! Well I want to know all about myths and then track down all those pokémon! Then I can take pictures for my dad and turn all those people in the Sinnoh paper into jynx!" She stops talking as footsteps echo across the pier towards us. She turns, looks up and smiles. "Hi Daddy," she says, swinging her legs again. "I was just learning about jynx."

Her dad looks like her, with his bright orange hair, freckles and glasses. A camera hangs on a strap round his neck, but it's nothing like a tourist's one or even the ones my dad buys when we go on holiday. It looks like the sort of thing my parents would tell me to stay away from if I saw it in a shop.

"Really?" Her dad squats down, steals a piece of her – well my donut, really – and pops it in his mouth. "Did you learn that if you keep running off without letting your dad know, they'll appear under your bed during the night?"

She gasps, the colour draining from her face. She looks at me the same time her dad does and I can't stop the grin that appears on my face.

"It's true," I say, nodding. "They used to scare my brother all the time when we grew up."

The girl squeaks. "I'm sorry Daddy!" she squeals, holding out her arms for a hug. "Don't make them appear under my bed! I'll be good, I promise!"

He laughs as he scoops her into his arms, letting her wrap her arms around his neck. "I'll tell them you're a good girl now." He picks up her book and mouths a silent thanks to me. "Now come on Mia, your mother's in the car and waiting for you."

"Alright," she sighs, pouting. "I don't want to go to grandma's house though. It always smells funny." She pushes away from him and turns to me. "Thanks for telling me all of that. And for the donut too! I promise that when I get a picture of the Articuno, I'll let you have a copy!"

"Okay." As they leave, I turn back to facing Seafoam, wondering just how true the stories of jynx are, and what it would be like to have one on my team.

**-O-O-O-**

Nowadays, Celadon is a big, bustling city, filled with endless amounts of skyscrapers, filled inside with either apartments or shopping malls - sometimes both. It's the only city with a publically acknowledged red-light district (whatever that is) and has a whole district dedicated to gambling and opium dens. (Oh, so that's what one of those is. Yeah, I don't think I'll be going there anytime soon.) The city is split into four quarters - both the north-west and east are housing and shopping districts, though the east is more trainer-based and generally seen as for working class, whereas the west is more high-end fashion and inhabited by the rich and people like that. The southwest is home to the gym and is a massive nature preserve - the forests have reclaimed the city, with vines crawling over and in through the skyscrapers. Bridges over roads have channels in them with little tiny bits of park and apparently it's an arrestable offence to destroy any plant-based life – pokémon or otherwise - in that district. And then the south-east is home to the gambling district, with the old Rocket's Game Corner, as well as all the seedy places that my parents will kill me for even knowing exist.

So apparently I should avoid that bit because it's all run down little shacks and full of dodgy nightclubs where people take drugs and have sex in the middle of the dancefloor. _How_ these people manage to get away with it is beyond me. Though why would people want to do that anyway? Do they not have the dreams about turning up to school in just their underwear? Being naked in front of people would be like that … but just _worse._

Though apparently some places around there still sell pokémon. And they let in trainers of any age. (And now this website is going on about ten-year old addicts and teenagers who've lost their pokémon and sell everything for more drugs. Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna be one of them and -_ oh my god I really didn't need to see that picture! My eyes!)_

I switch off my pokédex, my ears and face burning. I don't think I'm going to get the picture of that out of my brain for a while.

"_Lovely place, don't you think?"_

I practically fall out of the tree I'm perched in. Only at the last moment do I manage to grab hold of the trunk and glare up at Diz - thankfully he's sat down so I don't see his junk or worse dangling above my head.

"_Most people tend to go into a town to visit, rather than nesting in a tree like a fat pidgey and watching the world go by."_

"I wanted to see what the city is like," I say. From here I can see the skyscrapers stabbing the sky above them. In the distance, Saffron's buildings are even taller. I can see where nature has started to reclaim the city, just like the website was saying. There's even little parks and gardens atop skyscrapers and one seems to be completely abandoned - like something out of a horror film. The windows are shattered and trees and vines are all reaching out of the sides and seeping over the edges. If I had binoculars, I'm certain I'd be able to see pokémon running about in there.

"Besides, where were you when I had to cycle up that massive hill? And did you just call me fat?!"

"_Of course not, Darling. I merely said that it generally tends to be plump pidgey who perch in trees, not spindly little humans girls."_

I frown at him. "Whatever." There's no point in arguing with him - mainly because he always wins because he can read my mind. It's such an unfair advantage.

"_So Darling_" - there's a flash of light and suddenly he's sat beside me, smiling widely and swinging his legs like … well, me - "_is there a point to this?"_

"I'm just thinking," I say. "I won against Blaine, but that wasn't really a battle. And then Janine pretty much wiped the floor with my pokémon - well actually her cleaners are going to be wiping the floor."

"_Perhaps you should think about what you can do in such a city, Darling. There is a reason most trainers tend to scoot through, collect the badges and then leave. This city is rather corrupt - even by your modern-day, post-Rocket standards."_

"I suppose so," I say. "What do you know about the Rockets anyway?" I glance at him from the corner of my eye and see the way he stares off into the city, as if he's looking at something in particular. Try as I might, I can't see it. "_How_ do you know about them?"

"_That's a story for when you're older, Darling."_

"Everyone always tells me that," I moan. "When am I going to be old enough to actually hear these stories people won't tell me?"

He shrugs, but he's still looking off to the distance. _"When you're old enough to understand the world, when being told such things will not shatter the childlike innocence you still possess."_

"I've seen dead legends," I tell him, deadpan. "My best friend has vanished and I have no idea where he is. My brother stabbed some creepy dude because he looked like he was gonna abduct me. I nearly got eaten by a steelix, I was nearly murdered by a gengar that apparently wasn't completely a pokémon, saw all of Eterna possessed by gastlies and turn into zombies and I just had Blaine convince me that the world was ending unless I pushed a button to blow myself up." He looks at me in concern and I somehow manage to smile at him. "I'm only _ten,_ Diz. When I think about things like that and what I've been through, my brain doesn't want to function anymore. I get so scared to go back outside because _what if more bad things happen?_ I saw someone get eaten by those steelix. Me and my friends nearly got killed by ariados because we were too stupid to look for signs that they were nesting there.

"So _excuse_ me if I sometimes act all innocent and clueless," I growl, turning away from him. My hair flies into my face and I'm thankful, because it manages to hide the tears in my eyes, though it's useless in stopping the cracks in my voice. "I convince myself that it's all normal - that everyone goes out and sees creepy little girls in white singing songs in eerie voices. I'm running, Diz. I'm running from all these thoughts because I'm _so scared_ every minute I'm alone that it might happen again. Kiki knows this - it's why she's so protective of me. I think Mandy knows it too. I'm pretty sure it's why Cassie acts as crazy as she does, just to distract me for a little while.

"I don't know how to cope with all of this, so I try my best to ignore it. I can't tell my brother because he'll freak and think I need wrapping in cotton wool. I can't tell my parents because they'll want to keep me in their sight at all times. They looked so _old_ when I saw them last, Diz. Even when I talk to them on the phone I can hear the way they're worrying. Sean and his mother vanished and someone tried to attack my parents the same night. Something's keeping these people from finding me - even though I know by now they should have. If my parents think I'm safe, they only have to worry about themselves. If they worry about me, they'll make a mistake and I don't think it's the kind of mistake that they'll be able to survive.

"I feel like I'm trying to hold everything together with sticky-tape. Every time something happens, I feel it stretch further and further and all I can do is try to wrap it tighter in the hopes that it won't break. That's why I'm sitting here in this stupid tree instead of going into the city. That's why I find out what I can about these places before I go into them. Because I'm scared that each time I go into somewhere, something bad is going to happen and it's going to break everything that I'm trying hard to keep together." I grab onto his arm and do my best not to cry. "You can read my mind, can't you Diz? Tell me I'm not broken. Tell me that this is all normal and that I'm not the only person meant to deal with all of this."

Anyone else would be expected to hug me or something. It seems normal to hug someone when they're crying, right? Except Diz, being Diz, just teleports away from me with a sigh.

"_Welcome to the real world, Darling. It sucks."_ He sits on the branch above me, filing his nails – though where he got the nail file from, I have no idea – and seems more interested in them than my breakdown. _"You either learn to deal with its harshness, or you wither and die."_

I sniff and hug myself, pretending that someone at least cares enough to try and comfort me. "You could at least pretend to care, you know?"

He looks over his nails at me. _"And what would that accomplish? Would it make you stronger? More able to deal with the world and its problems? Or would it give you a false sense of hope – that when things are tough, you can flee behind another being, your tail tucked between your legs?"_ A flash of light and he's by my side again, though this time he jabs his nail file into my side. I yelp and nearly fall off the branch, though he doesn't even reach out to grab me. _"Believe it or not, Darling, I have better things to do with my time than to sit around here babysitting you. I could be out terrorising humans, raiding their fashion stores and gaining myself a new scarf… I could even be spending time with my wife!"_

I feel all my other emotions evaporate under the sudden guise of confusion. "You have a _wife_?"

"_Well of course,"_ he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. _"Well, that's the most apt human term for it."_

"Oh," I say. "Okay." I sigh and start to swing my legs as I stare out at Celadon. The moment I hop out of the tree, it means I'm going to be walking towards there. Once I start doing that, it means whatever's waiting for me in there is going to be able to find me. Of course, there could be nothing, but…

"_You should stop worrying so much."_

Of course, I forget that Diz has the unnatural ability to read my mind.

"_Live your life. Embrace it. Darling, if you spend every moment worrying about the what-ifs, you're going to die before you reach your human adulthood."_

"But-"

"_No buts!"_ He even goes as far as putting a finger on my lips. _"Now, I understand that you're worried about not being strong enough, isn't that right Darling? Well -_" there's a flash of light and suddenly there's a piece of paper in his hand, fluttering against a breeze I don't feel. _"Why not try this? Celadon's annual grass tournament? Goodness knows that dreary maractus of yours could do with beating some creatures up until she smiles."_

With that, he vanishes in another flash of light. I scrutinise the flier – first prize is a battle with Erika, without normal gym waiting times and fee restrictions, as well as her training the winner and their pokémon one-on-one. Second and third prize just have a battle with her, but nothing special outside of standard money prizes.

"I might as well see what it's about," I say to no one in particular. "After that stupid bright ninja, I guess I still have to do _some_ training."

**-O-O-O-**

"_And now, Celadon's twentieth annual Flower Cup reaches its quarterfinal match!"_

Oh my god, that announcer has not shut up this entire time. I swear, three days of listening to his screaming, loud, annoying voice and I'm ready to have Kiki fill his face with needles. Except he'd probably start announcing that too. _'And the needles are heading straight for my eyes! I'm currently wetting my pants!'_

"_Everyone, put it together for this well-loved trainer! You know him, you love him! Leader of Courmaline City, all the way in Kalos, three time Kalosian Champion, give it up for Ramos!"_

Personally, I think it's just more than a little unfair that I have to battle a gym leader in the quarter finals, even if he is apparently using a new team he's training up. It doesn't help that he looks like Grandpa too – well except for the fact that he has muscles that are the size of Grandpa's _head. _He's dressed all in green – apparently it's his solder's uniform from back when he was young and fighting in a war or something. I'm amazed it even still fits and can't help but wonder why he wants to wear it to a normal little battle tournament. I mean, does he not have normal clothes or something?

The pokémon he lets out looks like a withered, old tree. I wouldn't be surprised if a little gust of wind could blow it down. It has no leaves on top any more, just mangled, knotted branches that twist over each other, covered in thick, green moss that runs down the sides of its trunk. More branches come out of the side of the old, pale brown trunk, burying into the floor, almost like arms. Pieces of bark have been chipped away, but the inside of the tree is a void of cold, endless black.

Fog starts to leak out of the tree. It's thick and black, almost like thick smoke from a fire. A low growl echoes from the tree, so quiet that I could believe it came from anywhere else.

A single red eye blinks into life from within the darkness. It stares on me and I feel its gaze pass through me, looking straight through my flesh and into the depths of my soul. The bark _snaps_ and _crunches_ apart, revealing a mouth filled with splintered, jet-black fangs.

Then just like that, the eye and mouth vanish, leaving an old, beaten looking tree in its place.

"_Ramos' pokémon of choice is a trevenant! Whilst the deserts hold cacturne, a dark forest at night holds these beasties! Step into their path and you'll never be seen from again! How will a mere maractus stand up to one of these?"_

"Ignore him, Kiki," I say into my microphone. It's one of the ones that sit on my head and perch just around my mouth. Speakers are built into the walls of my podium, amplifying my every breath. I can hear myself breathing more than I can hear the crowd shouting. The stands are filled with people – so many that they all blur into one mesh of colour. Faces all look the same. Clothes all merge into one long string of rainbow fabric. I try to tune them out as best I can, but part of me wants to stop and read all the signs they hold up to be read by the cameras.

"You know," Ramos says conversationally, "when I was your age, I had already killed a man. There's nothing that prepares you for the sound a person makes when a knife buries deep into their hearts and tears through the muscle."

I blink and scratch my ears, uncertain if I've heard him right. I mean, he looks like he's able to kill a person with his hands, so it's not all that unbelievable, but to casually announce something like that? I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. Kiki looks over her shoulder at me, almost like she shares my thoughts about how crazy this old gym leader must be.

He has to be saying it to throw me off. When I found out I had to fight him, I looked online about his gym. Apparently he makes people swing along rope vines across a forest floor that's covered in old leaves and things that move about beneath it. Someone apparently fell in and ended up having to battle their way out of a horde of durant that swarmed them. That's ignoring the fact that he has female beedrill flying around in the forest – which will quite happily lay their eggs inside someone and let the baby weedle eat their way out when they hatch.

"When you were my age, did people still live in caves and hit each other with rocks?" I smile at him, seeing my face reflected on the stadium screen. He doesn't appear to be bothered by anything I say. "Or was it when people and pokémon still made babies together? I bet your dad was a breloom."

The crowd _'ooh'_ as one, like I'm at some dodgy rap battle or something. Ramos just smiles at me and tips his beret.

Then suddenly his pokémon vanishes from the field.

Images of the gastly-zombies and the not-gengar come to my mind before I can stop them. "I hate ghosts," I mutter, forgetting that my words are amplified for everyone to hear. "Cover yourself!"

The floor beneath Kiki begins to shake and swirl. Sand dances around her in a violent twister, circling more and more aggressively with each pass. Cotton erupts out of Kiki's hands, mixing in with the swirling sandstorms. The sound of it screams at my ears and I'm barely able to hear the crowd anymore. I smile to myself and slip on a pair of goggles to stop the sand getting into my eyes.

The trevenant appears behind Kiki, just as ghosts always do. Ever since I realised that I'll have to pass through Lavender again – and fight Morty in Johto – I've tried to train my pokémon how to fight them, mostly from finding little bits of information online.

Kiki spins, already expecting the blow. The needles on her arm shine, dripping poison. Her arm itself bulges, veins popping and suddenly it _erupts _with bulging muscles, easily three times the size it was previously. Kiki roars and slams her arm into the trevenant with enough force to stop the swirling sands. The tree snaps and falls to the floor with a deafening boom.

"_Amazing!_" the commentator screams. _"Maractus naturally can accelerate their growth by planting their roots – and here we see what happens when they force all that growth into one area! That arm full of needles has to have hurt!"_

If it wasn't a ghost, I would fully expect the tree to be unable to battle now – if not dead. Kiki's arm slowly reduces back to normal size, the weight moving down her body, making her bulge like some sort of weird cartoon character, right up until it descends into her roots and out into the ground. The trevenant groans and with another _snap_, it rights its broken body. Six legs, almost like thick roots themselves, spring out of the ground beneath it and it begins to scuttle around the arena like a spider.

Only it suddenly lurches forwards and vomits up what can only be described as pure evil.

I'm fairly certain I even hear screams coming from its puke.

"_Can it be? It is! Ramos has not just suffered first blood, but he's also suffering from a highly toxic poison used by the Fuschia Gym!"_

Well, I'd have been stupid not to have Kiki learn how to use that poison after it completely wiped out all of my pokémon.

"I must admit, I was not expecting that," Ramos says. The sands still swirl in the stadium, carrying enough sticky cotton to weigh down anything it touches. His pokémon is practically buried alive beneath the stuff, hardly able to move at all. "Enough theatrics. You Kantonese and your love of trash talk." He scoffs at the way the crowd suddenly begin to boo him. "Pokémon battles have become prissy, silly little things. In my day, they were brutal contests, borne of bloodlust both trainer and pokémon shared."

I'm fully aware that I could attack his pokémon now and exploit this weakness. Regardless of whether it happens to be poor sportsmanship or not, I know it could help. But something keeps me waiting, some urge to see what it is he's talking about. I think it's because he looks so much like Grandpa that I feel I have to be polite and listen to him.

"What do you say Trainer? Shall we abandon the theatrics and have a _true_ pokémon battle?"

I don't even get the chance to answer.

"Now my friend!" he roars. "Make them suffer!"

The battleground _explodes_. Dirt, dust and even concrete fly into the sky. Grass begins to grow at an impossible rate over the ground. Kiki mutters at it, but seems mostly unbothered by the foliage that grows around her, higher and higher still, almost up to her waist.

Too late do we both realise that it's not just grass that's growing.

Thick roots of ivy snake their way through the grass like fierce predators. They latch onto Kiki, grabbing her by either arm and beginning to pull. She cries out in pain and another wraps around her head, pulling it backwards and towards the ground. I scream for her to do something. She screams in pain louder than I can give any orders.

The trevenant echoes our screams. The world seems to grow darker. Black, unnatural mists foam at its mouth. With a gruesome snap, it folds its body in half, backwards.

And wailing black pours forth.

Flashes of pure darkness hurtle through the sky. The circle around the stadium like screaming, moaning predators. They scream sounds that make my spine crawl. Kiki becomes lost beneath the sound of the pained, haunted screams of the damned. The trevenant lies on the floor, forgotten. Abandoned. Dead. Whatever it was now exists in the phantoms that screech through the sky.

Grief. Misery. Fear. Each time one passes me, I feel the feelings anew. They're going to kill me. Why should I bother fighting? _I don't want to die!_ _Someone save me!_ No one will. I'll be left here alone. I'll die screaming, in pain. It's what everyone wants. It's why no one will help.

A phantom settles in the air before me, draining all the light from around it. I feel it sucking on my soul, the despair growing inside. It has no face, but I can see something like a body in the void that is its body. It tries to reach out to me with a long, spectral, shadowy hand.

In that moment, I recall everything to do with the gengar. I see the gastly zombies again and in my mind, I watch them descend on Celadon and leave it as much a ghost town as Eterna was. Some buried part of my mind rebels, like it's throwing off a weight that left it trapped.

"Get out of my face!" I scream at the spectre, punching uselessly at it. My fist passes through empty, impossibly cold sky. Yet still the creature screeches and darts through the air, screaming piercing sounds.

"Kiki!" I shout into the stadium. I can't see her through the darkness and the swirling sands, even with the goggles still on my face. "Get rid of this darkness!"

I don't understand the chemical reaction that makes it possible. Pascal tried explaining it to me once, but he seemed to understand as little as I did. Li seemed to think she knew more, but all it did was confuse us both.

All I understand is that somehow, certain pokémon can create short-burst fires of light that magnify the effects of the sun. Even beneath my goggles, I shut my eyes and place my hands over them. Still I see the bright flare of light, so strong that the blackness of my closed eyes glows orange.

I open my eyes to the shadows burning. They wail, shivering in the light, screeching sounds that I never, ever want to hear again. The vines binding Kiki retract, burning under the brilliance of the sun. I feel my skin begin to turn red and cook beneath its glare. Kiki shines with a brilliant light and with a feral growl, she directs all the energy of the sun into the withered, desiccated corpse of the tree.

The shadows explode into violent bursts of black. Unnatural screams fill the air.

Then suddenly, it's over. The trevenant has left nothing but a shelled-out husk in the middle of the battlefield. Kiki rubs her neck, pained enough for me to consider recalling her before I look across the field and see that Ramos –

"_Well, well! It seems that Ramos has fled the field under the cover of his ghostly darkness!"_

I sigh, though I'm not sure whether it's from relief at the trevenant dying or whatever it did, or just because it means I can recall Kiki without having to worry. The referee starts to announce that I'm the winner, but I'm already turning to leave. Honestly, I don't have the time for things like this anymore.

"I told you something was going to happen here," I mutter to Diz, aware he's not anywhere nearby, but certain he's listening.

**-O-O-O-**

I come away from the tournament in fourth place. As nice as it would have been to win, I don't exactly want to deal with a broken-necked Kiki. If she could survive such a thing I'm pretty sure that she'll fill me with enough needles so that people would mistake me for a maractus too.

"_Welcome one and all to this resplendent tournament's closing ceremony!"_

Even from the comfort of the pokémon centre, the announcer's voice still manages to pierce through my spine. I'm sure that they probably want me in the winner's circle or whatever they call it, to give me a bit of prize money and celebrate me managing to beat Ramos. Three days later and they're still uncertain where he vanished to that day – I think that he's like Agatha and part ghost or something. Or maybe he's just an actual ninja – unlike Lady Purple of Fuschia. I guess I can't be _totally _mean to her seeing as she did help teach Kiki that poisoning technique… but it doesn't mean that I have to like her.

"_Please join me in crowning this year's Flower Cup winner… visiting us from Johto; Blake Rogers!"_

The lobby of the pokémon centre explodes with sound. I retreat back into my corner a little bit more, trying my best to watch whilst being unseen by everyone else. It's not going too well so far. They don't seem to agree with the philosophy of 'if I can't see them, they can't see me'. Jerks. I see the way they keep glancing at me, as if I should be on the television too. Well excuse me but my pokémon got hurt and I quit the tournament to look after her. I can't really go into a grassy tournament with a snorunt, can I?

"_And as Blake heads to the winner's podium to accept his prize, let us recount the battles that brought him victory and the pokémon that did so – a bayleef, uncommon enough to be used in these tournaments. In his first battle – folks, something appears to be happening here!"_

Well if it wasn't for the fact that I can _see_ the winner's podium visibly _vibrating_, I guess this guy's constant narration would be pretty useful. I mean the podium is steelix-grade steel so nothing should be able to – _holy crap it's just collapsed in on itself!_

There's a tremendous sound like an explosion from outside. Dust and dirt fly up into the air on camera until the feed cuts out. People in the centre start screaming. Others shove their way outside just to see what all the commotion is about. Already stronger trainers are organising rescue groups.

My apathy towards it is only slightly disturbing. I mean, I know I _should_ be bothered by all of this. If I was out there right now, I'd be freaking out. But for the first time in a long time, I'm not actually near the eye of the storm. I'm away from it all, without the world apparently relying on me to save it. Sure it might make me a bad person, but there are people that get _paid_ to deal with stuff like this! I'm only nearly eleven and entirely not well-equipped enough to deal with an explosion or whatever the hell's happening.

A little old man hobbles towards me and sits down on the sofa I hide next to, apparently willing to let me pretend to be invisible. He opens out a broadsheet newspaper (I thought they got rid of those years ago) and begins reading it, ignoring the people as they run around the centre, screaming and yelling for people to calm down and organise themselves.

"I would have thought you would be out there helping," the old man says, and he can only be directing his comments towards me.

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

"I suppose not." He flicks his paper, turns the sheet and I see that the crossword is already filled in. "Still, most strong trainers do seem to come with a sense of selflessness."

"I'm tired," I say. "I don't have to help save the world at every chance. Erika is there – she can deal with it."

"Yes…" he says, trailing off and staring at the ceiling. "Erika… the mistress of Celadon, apparently ignorant to organised crime beneath her city. Do you think it coincidence or planning that a sinkhole opens beneath a stadium in the city's most crime-ridden quarter?"

"Does it matter?" I ask. "I mean, it's not like – hey wait a second. They never said what happened. The news feed just cut out." I forget about everyone else as I stand up and snatch the old man's paper from his hands. Ramos smiles up at me, teeth perfectly white, his muscles hidden beneath a baggy beige blaze. "You," I say. "…I'm going to be leaving now." I do _not_ want to start getting on the wrong side of a gym leader with spooky ghosts that can explode into spirits or whatever the hell they were.

"Probably the wisest course of action," he says, smiling a too-perfect smile. "A lot of things happen without the knowledge of the general training public. Since you bested me in battle, I shall do you the courtesy of informing you to stay out of Celadon for a period of time. When the Rockets rose to power, they had one of their strongest footholds in Celadon. Erika claimed ignorance, yet her city prospered under the Rocket's regime. Now it suffers and organised crime is again on the rise. Gym leaders can be corrupt… and it often requires something world-changing for those in power to begin investigating said leaders."

I want to turn and leave, but I can't help but stay staring at him, trying to understand just what it is he's saying. "You caused that?"

"Not me. Associates. In Kalos, one madman nearly succeeded in unleashing a weapon of mass destruction on the land. The death toll was in the thousands, rather than the millions, but it still could have been prevented. Elites, Champions and even the government were too complacent in their management of gym leaders and those beneath them. If they had been more proactive, perhaps such things could have been prevented."

"That doesn't mean you get to do things like _this!_" I hiss.

"In every war, there are sacrifices," he says, shrugging. "You send in your pawns to draw the line of fire away from your knights, your bishops and your queen. If only drastic measures will claim people's attention, then we will provide them for everyone, in the safest and least harmful way."

I'm struck speechless. My brain pretty much hits a wall as I try and understand any sort of logic behind his words. No matter how I try, nothing makes sense.

"Perhaps you should visit Kalos sometime," he says, as if he hasn't just discussed killing people to save others. "Previous history of pokémon-powered nuclear weapons aside, we're quite a pleasant country. Now, before you leave Celadon, I feel I should update your pokédex for you. Tournament or no, you did manage to defeat me in battle."

Autopilot makes me hand over my pokédex before I realise just what it is I'm doing. As he connects it to his phone and fiddles with buttons, I come to my senses. The fact that I'm certain the streets are going to be filled with people taking advantage of the chaos is the only thing that keeps me from running out and joining them.

"What exactly did your pokémon do, anyway?" I ask.

"A trick that all spectral pokémon can use." He doesn't elaborate. I want to shake him by the shoulders and demand answers, but he also looks like he could break my bones with a flick of his pinkie finger, so maybe it wouldn't be the wisest course of action. "Congratulations," he says, handing me back my pokédex. "You now officially own my gym's badge. The battles you face in gyms now will only be that much stronger. Good luck. And please, do heed my advice. It would be a senseless death if you got yourself involved in a much-needed investigation to Erika's corruption."

I stand there, pokédex in my hand, moving about as much as a slakoth. "But what if she's innocent?"

He stands and straightens his blazer. "It wouldn't be the first time people have died for a mistake in the evidence." There's something in the way his face pinches at that, like there's a lot more he's not telling me. I want to ask, but logic wins out.

"I'll leave first thing tomorrow," I tell him, "when everything has calmed down."

"A wise course of action," he says, turning to leave. "And furthermore, your indifference in this matter does not make you less human. Too often people let their emotions rule them in a situation like this. Your logic, even if it is cold and heartless, will save your life." He pulls a hat from underneath his blaze – how he didn't crush it, I have no idea – and places it squarely on his head. "And for the record, my father was not a breloom. He hit like one and certainly looked like one, but he was all-too human. However, I'll remain quiet on the matter of spending my childhood hunting prehistoric monsters for food."

I can't help the little grin that comes to my face. It's only when my phone starts ringing with Ali's ringtone that I notice Ramos has disappeared again, making me all the more certain he's an actual ninja.

"I'm fine," I say as I answer the phone. "No – I know I was there for the tournament, but I'm not there now. How do you even know about that? Did you see me on tv?" The thought of being seen on the television in people's houses makes my ears burn bright red. Should I even be doing something like that if the weird people are following me because of the phione? I sigh down the phone, ignoring Ali for the moment. I wish I had someone to talk to about all of this, someone that knew just what was going on, rather than a family I panic with every mention of it and a hypno that I'm pretty sure murders anyone he thinks is following me.

"I'm coming to Saffron tomorrow," I tell Ali, locking away those thoughts for now. "I'll see you and then you'll know that I'm fine and not all exploded in a cloud of dust."

I hang up the phone and look around, noticing for the first time that people are being brought in from outside, bloody and covered in dirt. As the world around me rushes around in a post-disaster panic, I sit on the floor, open up my pokédex and begin researching the Rocket's rise to power, distinctly aware that something is wrong with me.


	25. Rulers of the Night

_Dear Diary,_

_The final trial is by far the worst, unsurprisingly. The first measures your ability when pushed to the limit of your psyche, bending your emotions and turning them against you. The second tests your wits and seeks a way to compare you to a mewling babe._

_After them comes the test of will. Endure being buried alive with insects crawling over your body for forty-eight hours. Watch cities burn and be powerless to stop them. Be given the choice of enduring pain in order to prevent those your love from ever receiving harm._

_All of these tests are designed so that even if you pass them, your life is changed forever after. A price to pay for a chance at eternal glory. Some species were reduced a single living member. Others lost the ability to retain memories for longer than a minute. _

_And one person saw everything upside-down for the rest of his life._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Rulers of the Night|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

"So let me get this straight, right after I leave you, somehow you've ended up with two more gym badges – in addition to the one you actually need – nearly got eaten by ariados, saw a _blue_ serperior… and you have a hypno that refuses to wear any form of pants?"

I snort soda out of my nose. The bubbles are nothing short of evil little spikes of pain that punish me for not letting them traverse down to my stomach. "Okay, my life isn't _that_ weird!" I protest. "It's just when you say it like that it manages to sound all crazy and stupid!"

Ali laughs loudly. With ketchup smeared all around her mouth, she looks a lot like a demented madwoman that's ordering the death of millions or something. Her burger bleeds as she bites into it, dripping blood onto the plate. I pull a face at it. I don't care even if it is Ali – she's still a freak for wanting to eat bleeding meat. It's like, _hello_, my food is dead and I don't want it to pretend to be alive whilst I'm trying to eat it! That's just rude.

"You know I haven't had a burger since I started at this training dojo," she says, burps loudly and then grins at me. "A couple more days and I'm done. Though I'll miss it. Aside from the crap food and the crazy hours that you have to train, it's been fun."

I'm pretty sure she's also become part-gurdurr in her time there. She's only just a bit bigger than when I left her, but now she's just all pure muscle – I'm pretty sure I could live in a gym until I was her age and I'll never have a stomach that looks like that.

"So," she says, pointing at me with a fry, "what's been eating you? And don't say 'nothing'. I know you just said all that, but there's something more, isn't there?"

I shrug and sigh in one movement. My burger suddenly doesn't seem as appealing anymore. I pick the onions out of it and begin trying to peel the skin off them. "I dunno," I say, staring at my food. "I'm just… sort of… fed up? It's like; first I had to leave my home because Craig vanished. Then I see creepy things that no one else does. Then steelix nearly eat us, Eterna becomes full of zombies, a gengar tries to kill me and then stuff just _keeps_ happening on top of all that and as much as I try to pretend that nothing's wrong, it just feels like it's crushing me, you know?"

"I think I can understand," Ali says. "I can't relate… but I can understand. There's a few textbook definitions for what you're feeling right now. But I'm your friend, not your therapist. So as your friend – it's not healthy to bottle everything up like you have been. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to be angry, go beat someone up and steal their money. You can say that you don't want to make people worry… but you only end up making them worry more when you get so upset you end up as down as this."

"I suppose," I say, poking my food.

"Hey!" She snaps her fingers in front of my face, again and again until I'm forced to look at her. "There's no 'suppose' here, alright? I'm right, whether you want to hear it or not. Now the cure for all this is to binge on milkshakes, order loads of pizza and sweet things, watch insane cartoons all night and maybe go online and troll some old people that think they can play video games."

"Maybe," I say, shrugging.

"Hey." She moves from her seat, takes the spot next to me in my half of the booth and hugs me. "When you're with me, you just have to be you, okay? No sudden hero of the world, no button you have to press to save the world… no weight on your shoulders at all, okay?"

"Okay." The fact that I'm not unconvinced comes across way too strongly in my voice. I wince and manage to hug her back. "I mean alright. I guess it'd be nice to pretend I'm normal for once."

"You _are_ normal," Ali tells me. She grins. "Okay, maybe you're a _little_ weird, but my point still stands. Some people can deal with going on their journeys alone. I think with everything that's happening to you, it'd be best if you keep someone around that you can actually talk to. Someone that will tell you you're being stupid if you think you have to help in every disaster that happens when you're nearby. You realise trainers don't have to help all the time, right? Hell, some of us _cause_ the disasters. Now" – she grabs my plate and presses it into my chest – "eat something. Because believe me, if you don't finish that burger, I will."

I manage a little bit of a smile. "Okay."

"Good." She nods as if she's just taught me how to master kung fu or something. "Now, tomorrow you're going to head off to Ebony Town and get your gym badge. Then once you've done that, you're going to come back here and meet me. Then we're both going to get the coach down to Tohjo Falls. That way if anything crazy happens on the way, you can let me deal with it, alright?"

"Okay," I say again. "Thanks."

"Just don't let your flasher hypno near me," she says, shuddering. "I'm a fighter – I'm not fond of psychics. _Especially_ not one with boundary issues and a distinct lack of clothing."

**-O-O-O-**

I regret everything.

I think this is what a hangover must feel like. Why did I eat so much sugar? I think I can feel my teeth rotting away. My head feels like I've got a loudred singing opera inside it and my tummy hurts _so_ much. I think I ate my body weight in sugar. And pizza.

Also, I discovered that Cassie even freezes pizza before she eats it. Mandy is apparently quite happy to eat everything and anything, whilst Kiki only likes pineapples on her pizza. I take it as positive proof that she is a freak.

I rub my tummy and breathe in as much fresh air as I can. After leaving Saffron, I can _feel_ the air get lighter as I get away from the city. As the normal fear about going into a new town tries to settle, I tell myself it's only a couple of days until I see Ali again. Then we're both getting the coach to Tohjo. Sure afterwards I'm going into Johto and she's heading up and around Kanto, but it still means that I won't have to be on my own in some random hot, smelly coach for a couple of days.

I flick through my pokédex as I wander through the grass, Mandy on my shoulder. After last time, I don't really like the idea of staying in Lavender. Anywhere that has to bolt the bed to the floor because ghosts like to fling stuff across the room is not somewhere I want to stay again in a hurry. It was everything like a horror film – except instead of running away screaming, people were treating it as normal. I shudder. No thank you.

"Aw," I moan, looking up in time to see a furry orange blur run away. "I could have caught that!"

Mandy trills, takes to the sky and takes a massive poop in the spot I saw the orange blur. As gross as that is, I get the message. Mr-Poops-Mountains was bad enough to have to look after once a day. I do _not_ want to have to house train one of those.

"I'm not cleaning that up," I say to her. She just fluffs up and looks proud of herself. Whatever. With my luck I'd probably end up with a growlithe with delusions of swimming championships or something. I don't exactly want to teach one of those to swim, much less anything else. Why can't the big, terrifying monsters be polite and only do little poops? It can be like those shows where they get recycled into fuel or something, so people will be paying me to take my pokémon's poop away.

I sigh as I glance down at my pokédex and find it full of news about everything that happened in Celadon. Every site I can see reports that they're not sure what caused the massive sinkhole to erupt, but they think it's an onix changing paths underneath the ground. Then there's sites complaining that the wild onix are monitored because of reasons like this and none were in the area. A few conspiracy theory people are saying that the stuff that happened in Sinnoh decades ago is going to happen again, some are saying it's a sign that the Rockets are back, whilst most are just blaming the government for letting something like that happen.

Everywhere agrees that no one died in the accident, though.

I frown, hitting the button to switch off my pokédex. Ramos said it was a way to get people to investigate Erika for her part in the Rocket's schemes, even though they were so long ago. If it's taking this much to get people to investigate her, doesn't that just mean that she's innocent? Or she's hidden things too well to get investigated for normal reasons?

Mandy lands on my shoulder, cooing and rubbing her face against my cheek, as if she can sense that something is wrong. I rub her head instinctively, my mind elsewhere. Why does Ramos expect me to care? Why did he even feel like _I_, out of everyone that exists, needs an answer?

I'm still thinking about it as I finally reach Lavender town, a few hours later. _Let them all play politics or whatever it is,_ I decide as streetlights burst above me, basking the street in darkness. Emergency lights in the ground jump into life, whirring and glowing an eerie blue. _I'm not getting involved in their games, _ever.

**-O-O-O-**

Ebony Town is entirely not what I was expecting.

The rest of Kanto is really laid back, almost behind the times in terms of everything. People still build using bamboo construction, rapidash-drawn carriages are favoured to cars and most jobs are carried out by pokémon instead of machinery. Saffron and Celadon are probably the only places that seem anywhere close to a vision of modern day living.

Meanwhile, Ebony Town seems like one massive party.

The streets are filled with parade floats of every colour I could ever possibly imagine. A float of almost every pokémon in existence trundles down the street, moving along to some horribly jazzy music that should have stayed in whatever layer of Hell it was made in. baton twirlers smile and perform in between each float, wearing pokémon costumes to match the float they're following. It wouldn't be too bad, if their costumes didn't look like their parents made them last minute the night before.

The streets aren't shut off to the public, which means that people are happily walking between the floats, apparently insanely drunk already. I check my phone and see the time staring back up at me, then I have to check my pokédex to confirm it.

Who has a parade at seven in the morning?

Men and women wearing bright pink scarves dance in the middle of the street. I take one look at them and quickly stare at the sky. Yup, they're _just_ wearing scarves.

The buildings are just rows upon rows of apartment blocks, but the bottom of each one seems to either be a restaurant, a corner shop or a nightclub. In every other town I've been in, there have been people in suits trying to get to work first thing in the morning. Instead it looks like _everyone_ is out in the streets here, busy drinking or doing whatever else – no thank you lady, I don't care if you're dressed like an alakazam, I am _not_ taking a spoonful of whatever the hell that is.

The pokémon out in the streets are just as drunk or drugged up as their trainers. I could have happily gone my whole life without ever seeing a machop drinking an entire _barrel _of beer.

I have to cover my ears as the jigglypuff float drifts past. I know they might be famous for that, but I really don't think a man wearing nothing but _candyfloss_ – never eating that again – and making sounds that would make exploud cry in pain is something that should ever be exposed to human ears. If he gets any screechier, I think only pokémon are gonna be able to hear him.

"Ali let me come here on my own?" I whisper to myself, running across the road. That venonat float is entirely too creepy to be allowed out in daylight. I don't care if it's made out of papier-mâché or polystyrene or even if it's just a psychic projection, _it's staring into my soul._

I shudder as I run into a grocery store, pressing my back against the wall so I don't have to see anymore insane parades.

Except of course, the store is filled with people in bad pokémon costumes, apparently unconcerned that they've left nothing to the imagination. A woman dressed as a meowth would be a more believable snorlax, honestly. I'm fairly certain she'll stop talking at one point to pull some food out from between her folds and start eating that.

I would try to go down the aisles to avoid people, but instead they're filled with little kids running around in equally frightening costumes. I mean seriously, my parents would _kill me_ if I left the house wearing a bikini! Who lets their kids go to a parade in one? I'd be dressed up as a slugma and have to like it. No one ever wants to go near a slugma. They're all gooey and stupid looking and fail to realise that they've set everything around them on fire with a badly timed burp.

All of a sudden the horrible music outside stops playing. I breathe a sigh of relief.

"_Everybody, let's give it up for Ebony Town, where it's party central, all year long!"_

I groan as the crowds outside start screaming and celebrating. A glance out of the store windows shows me a woman on a parade float, though there's no pokémon decorating it with her. Instead she stands behind an umbreon float, in front of an absol one and a murkrow balloon is flapping – how, I'm sure I'll never know – above her head.

As if that wasn't enough to draw attention, she also looks like she got into a fight with a glowstick and lost. Neon yellow is pretty much painted down her front – in fact, I'm sure it _is_. Her shorts are smaller than my pants and a horrible bright pink in colour, her hair is black and curly, long enough to reach the bottom of her back, but it has a long streak of bright purple running all the way down the side.

And I'm pretty sure she's wearing florescent green hooker boots.

I grab my phone and snap a picture of her, thinking of Ali's face when I show her it. As the woman looks around, dark blue painted over her eyelids, her lips bright red and generally looking like a mess, I get the feeling I've seen a picture of her somewhere.

Sure enough, as I flick through the internet on my phone, I realise just where I've seen a picture of her before. Lamya Channary – leader of the Ebony Town gym and an expert in dark pokémon.

I look back at her and groan. I think I've already gotten a headache from all that neon.

**-O-O-O-**

Unlike the other gyms where I've had to get one of these special badges, I don't get the chance to meet Lamya early to tell her about it. Instead I have to go the usual route, through the countless receptionists – who thankfully dress in dark colours, though they wear pink glow-bands – and have to wait a week before she's ready to see me.

It takes me a whole lot less than that to decide that I really don't like Ebony Town. The fact that everyone's partying _all_ the time and constantly trying to drag me into the parties? Yeah, no thanks. I'm pretty sure my parents would actually hunt me down – with a lot more effectiveness than the people who Diz killed in Saffron – and ground me until I was sixty if I went with the suggestions of drinking along with everyone else.

So apart from sleeping at the pokémon centre – which thankfully _isn't_ painted bright neon or filled with party decorations, just drunk and drugged up trainers – I spend most of my time outside training or just avoiding people.

It doesn't even surprise me when come the day of my battle, there's another parade going on in town. I sigh as I watch it, really, _really_ hoping that Lamya doesn't decide that I have to battle her on one of the floats or something. Or worse, wear bright yellow spandex and have green highlights in my hair.

Unlike every other building in Ebony, the gym isn't built into the bottom of an apartment block. From the outside it's the same general shape, but the gym itself is only three floors – ground floor for the reception, apparently the first floor is where the gym leaders and the trainers relax and do everything they do behind the scenes, and the basement is where the battles happen. All the floors above the gym are apartments for the people who work in the gym.

The walls of the reception room are painted black. Black leather sofas and armchairs lay scattered around the room – some are even coloured in silly string. A painting of a murkow is the only thing that has any sort of colour – and even that's just a blur of dark blues and greens. I honestly don't know how the receptionist lady manages to cope with such a depressing room all day. She must have some sort of colour-filter in her glasses to make everything seem more fun than it actually is. Otherwise, I'm surprised she hasn't gone crazy and killed someone.

Or maybe she has. Maybe she's secretly a serial killer and she takes this job so no one will suspect her.

I feel the familiar nervous flutter as my name gets called. I'm forced to walk past the reception desk – I'm watching you, secret serial killer lady – to get to the elevator for the basement.

Predictably, the moment I stand inside it, all the power goes out.

"Hello?" I call out into the darkness. The sound of my voice surprises me. Am I really that tired? I don't feel it. Maybe I'm just bored of all these crazy things happening to me or something?

"_Trainer!"_

I recognise Lamya's voice as it crackles from all the speakers in the elevator. I can't help but groan. So _this _is how it's going to play out.

"_I hear you're after a special recommendation. The Anville College of History and Archaeology? I hope you're aware that means you're going to have to work for this badge!"_

The way she says 'work' reminds me of those crazy people on the fitness videos. Or the men that dress up as women. I can so picture her on those stupid floats screaming out, _'You better work it, gurl!'_

I manage not to laugh at my train of thought. "I know," I say to the darkness. "What do I have to do?"

The elevator starts moving, still without any lights on. _"As a trainer, you're often going to find yourself in places you don't recognise, terrains that are unfamiliar and unpredictable. The goal here is to see how well you navigate in something like that."_

The elevator stops and the doors open.

I find myself staring at an indoor _labyrinth. _Stone walls that almost reach the ceiling stretch out and converge in all the weirdest of places. A couple of torches burn on the walls of some and I can already start to figure out most of the way I'll need to take, thanks to this view. Steps lead down from the elevator to the start of the impossible labyrinth. I have no idea how she managed to get this_ inside_ a building.

Then the lights go out and everything is pitch black.

"_Of course,"_ Lamya's voice echoes, _"there's a catch."_

My first instinct is to release Mandy from her ball, to help me deal with the sudden darkness. Instead I just keep my hand hovering over it, waiting to hear what Lamya says. I don't want to get disqualified just because she decides that I'm not allowed to have my pokémon out to help me find my way around.

"Of course there is," I say to the darkness.

The speakers crackle with laughter. _"Worry not, dear trainer! I've sent you one of my own pokémon to assist you with this!"_

Red rings begin glowing right in front of me. I shriek and nearly fall over as a pair of yellow eyes glow and stare up at me.

"_Meet Bonnie, my umbreon."_

The darkness-cloaked umbreon grunts up at me. I manage to smile at it a little, silently hoping it's not been told to eat me or something similar.

"_She'll help you out and act as your guide. You're free to use your own pokémon as you see fit. Oh, and before I forget – you have a time limit of one hour to find your way from one side of the maze to the other. If you manage to exit and find me before that hour's up, you get your badge! Good luck!"_

Above the maze, in bright red neon lights, a countdown begins ticking away. I see it above me, _59:59_ and curse a little under my breath. Mandy joins me in a flash of white light, cawing and crowing at the umbreon.

"She's leading us," I tell Mandy. "Let's go," I tell the umbreon.

It bounces away happily, a blur of red ringed light. I have to crawl down the stairs slowly, spreading my feet out one in front of the other, constantly expecting to fall and break my neck.

The timer glows right in front of me when I reach the bottom of the stairs. _55:35._

Great, four minutes wasted trying to get down some stairs. The umbreon barks, lighting up a portion of the maze in front of me.

"Stay close," I tell Mandy. She chirps as she takes to the sky. I can barely see her shadow as she flutters above us, circling and chirping every so often.

Bonnie growls, as if she's getting impatient. I follow after her, moving as quickly as I can whilst still making sure I'm treading carefully. She darts off into the distance – with the lights out, I'm not even sure I can tell directions anymore. I stretch my hands out to the sides, to try and feel the edges of the walls around me. I feel nothing.

I move further and further to the right, waiting to see if I can touch something. The umbreon continues to run ahead, only just in my line of sight. Finally I reach over to the right far enough to touch the wall… only to discover it's covered in some sort of _slime_.

"Ew!" I groan, flicking my hand. The umbreon makes a sound I'm sure has to be laughter. I grumble about her under my breath as Mandy squawks. I look up and see her nestled on the countdown timer. _51:51. _I groan and say nothing.

Bonnie barks at me. I can see her tail wagging, thanks to the glowing red bands on it. She's stopped in place for once. I start to jog after her, smiling to myself, thinking she's helping –

- And then I run face-first into a wall.

I moan as I bounce off the wall and hit the floor. Bonnie makes a sound like laughter. She walks up to me, licks my face and then leaps into the distance, over the dead-end she's caught me in.

Above, the timer still continues.

_48:22._

I groan and push myself to my feet. Mandy flutters down and greets me, chirping softly. I begin to retrace my steps and stare in surprise at a flickering orange glow. I don't remember there being a torch on the wall before. I'm sure I've retraced my steps, which means that somehow I missed that before?

Something _groans _in the distance. It's almost metallic in sound. I shudder and try my best not to wonder what it is. Instead I run towards the torch, leap up and grab it from the wall.

A blast of hot, damp air rolls down my back.

Mandy trills in alarm, even as I spin around and find myself face-to-face with a _very_ unhappy houndoom.

It snorts an acrid, smoky breath out of its nostrils at me. Despite the fact it's utterly pants-wetting terrifying, I kinda want one. Although maybe not one that looks so much like it's ready to _eat me._

"Mandy!" I shriek as the houndoom opens its mouth. Mandy divebombs the houndoom as I leap backwards, swinging the torch like it's a sword. Stupidly, I realise that I'm swinging fire at something that _breathes_ flames. Mandy Sheds feathers into the houndoom's face and spits a horrible-smelling bile into its eyes.

The houndoom _howls_ and breathes a continuous plume of fire into the sky. I run in the other direction as quickly as I can. Everyone knows about houndoom fire. I do _not_ want to be burnt with flames that I'll feel burning me for the rest of my life! The walls blur as I race past them. I choose directions at random. Right, left, another left, right.

Mandy trills as she flutters after me. The heat from the torch is almost nothing compared to the rampaging fire-hound behind me. Its growls are perfect replicas of what they use in horror movies I've watched with Jerry. The sound races down my spine and leaves me covered in goose bumps.

And of course, I discover that the turn I take leads me into a dead end.

Mandy soars past me, perches on the wall for less than a second and uses it as a take-off pad. She darts back at twice the speed and even as I throw myself to the floor, I feel the breeze whip through my hair. The torch flickers and barely manages to stay alive in the wake of her attack.

There's the sound of bodies colliding behind me. I turn in time to see Mandy fluttering above the downed houndoom, puffing up and screeching at it. She leaps for it whilst it's down, pecking it in the face and scratching anywhere she can reach. The houndoom whimpers and tries to burn her. She sheds more feathers into its mouth. Somehow they absorb all the fire and render it useless.

The houndoom yelps and deciding it's had enough, turns tail and flees.

"I'm not so crazy about houndoom anymore," I mutter. Mandy trills her agreement.

Above, the countdown still runs.

_40:23._

"Crap," I mutter, retracing my steps. I try my best to remember the route I took. Mandy flutters up high, attempting to guide me with shrieks and the world's worst attempt at charades. Was it a left here? A right? I take a guess and find another dead end waiting for me.

This time though, there's a shiftry smiling and waiting.

I scream and run in the other direction. Its laugh follows me no matter how much distance I put between us.

The torch begins to flicker. I moan at it, tell it not to even _think_ about going out.

Suddenly I'm plunged into darkness. I'm unable to see again and even the sound of my own breathing sounds like it's coming from the other side of a long hallway. Something tells me that Mandy is hovering just above my head, but the brushes of air just don't seem to be doing as much anymore. It's almost like the darkness is blanketing my senses, leaving me defenceless. Even the torch in my hand feels cold.

Red rings glow in the darkness. Bonnie saunters up to me, her eyes glowing.

"I'm not falling for that a second time," I tell her. My own voice barely registers in my ears.

The red rings begin to move, taking a turn I hadn't even realised was there. I growl, knowing I've already fallen for it before, but still decide to follow her through the twists and turns. A left here, a right there. I try to count the paces between each turn so that I might be able to retrace them a bit quicker next time.

Ahead I see Bonnie's tail wagging again. She turns to look at me, yellow eyes unblinking in the darkness. When I get close she bounds off to the left, almost faster than I can track.

I frown, think about it and check the other direction. Sure enough, there's a passageway to the right. I move slowly through it. The light begins to appear again. My torch seems to get stronger against the darkness. I feel the heat of the burning flames again. My breathing echoes in my ears. Mandy caws and sits on my shoulder, puffing up and clucking in anger.

"I thought as much," I say to my illuminated maze. "That umbreon's a dirty trickster." I make the note to myself to never trust it when its tail starts wagging. Or at all when it appears. I need to figure out how it makes the sense-blocking darkness though. That'd be useful for battles and sneaking up on people.

The clock above me gets louder. I look up and see the seconds roll past.

_30:03. 30:02. 30:01._

_30:00._

The lights blind me.

I groan as I hide my eyes under my arm. Mandy growls and I feel her hide her face beneath her wings. Blinking spots from my eyes, I see the walls of the labyrinth, coated in a thick, clear slime that's constantly oozing down to the ground.

And impossibly, the walls are _moving._

Metallic groaning echoes from all around me. I throw myself to the floor as dust gets fired out of little holes in the wall. When nothing bad happens, I look up to see metal hand-holds sticking out of the walls.

"_Three-second warning!" _Lamya's voice echoes out. _"You might want to hold onto something!"_

I don't give it a second thought. I leap to my feet and throw myself at the hand-holds, grabbing onto one as if it's going to pull me out of the maze.

No sooner than I grab it does the floor give way beneath me.

I scream as suddenly I'm trying to support my weight on this stupid little metal thing that looks like it's about to break. Mandy starts squawking in panic. My feet dangle above a bottomless abyss. I can't see anything past my shoelaces, dangling against the darkness. The muscles in my arms burn.

The world begins to rotate.

I scream again as the walls of the labyrinth flip around. The floor beneath me is suddenly a slippery wall of the labyrinth. The ceiling above me is the other wall. The former ceiling is now the wall on my far right. The bottomless abyss beneath me is now a dark plunge on my left.

I continue dangling from the handhold for a moment before finally dropping to the new 'floor'. Unable to keep my footing, I slip and fall on my butt into the slime.

Mandy seems to find that hilarious.

"Shut up," I growl, getting to my feet and flinging slime at her. At least with the lights on I can begin to try to find my way out. The only problem is that walking through the maze now makes me feel sick. The perspectives are all wrong. I want to stop and close my eyes, to wait for everything to right themselves.

It's at that point that the wall in front of me _disappears_.

I stare at it like there's a punchline waiting for the joke. A groaning sound echoes from my left and I watch as a wall appears from the ground to box me in.

"Of course the maze moves," I mutter, moving into the maze, not quite jogging but not walking either. "Why wouldn't it? It's already been pitch black and _rotated_, why wouldn't it organise itself?"

The timer still continues to tick away, but now I can't see it. I can hear it continually clicking away, counting down the seconds.

The lights start to flicker overhead. I groan and start running a little bit faster. There's no way I'm getting stuck in a moving maze in the dark without stupid Bonnie to try and save me. Not only do I try to remember the twists and turns I take, but now I have to try and remember what walls are where.

And I'm fairly certain the one in front of me has eyes.

I don't even have to give a verbal command. I just point at the eyes and Mandy understands instantly. She leaps at the wall-eyes and suddenly the wall and almost every other wall around it _vanishes_. In their place is a zoroark, grinning mischievously.

Mandy pecks it in the head until it bolts into the maze, cackling all the while.

"I guess that explains a few things," I say, watching it leave. "Keep an eye out for more of them." The illusion of walls the zoroark created are gone, leaving a clear square of empty room to run through. When I reach the end, I look up to try and see Lamya or even the staircase I descended. I get the feeling like I'm in some ancient dude's painting of weird, impossible staircases.

The handholds erupt out of the floor and ceiling.

I grab the one on the floor and crunch my eyes shut. I feel the world around me begin to move again. The urge to be sick is almost the only thing my brain can think about. Blood rushes to my head. I feel like I'm spinning, even when I know everything's stopped rotating.

When I open my eyes, everything is back the way it started. The walls are walls again, the ceiling is ceiling and the floor is floor.

And I'm bathed in darkness once more.

I let go of the handhold and let gravity guide me to the floor. The timer above still continues its merciless countdown.

_02:22._

"Crap," I mutter as I start running in a straight line. I keep my hands outstretched in front of me, hoping they'll hit something before I run into it again. Mandy flutters alongside, just in the glow of my torch. Bonnie hasn't appeared and I can still hear myself, which makes me convinced that the umbreon has something to do with the sensory-depriving darkness.

I look up and see the timer's lost another minute.

"No way," I growl. "This thing is cheating!"

As if to reply, the timer changes again.

_00:05._

"That's not fair!" I scream. "Find a zoroark!"

_00:02._

"Mandy!" I shout. "We need-"

_00:01._

"-to find the exit!"

_00:00._

A foghorn moans through the building. I stare up at the flashing timer, mouth wide open. The horror of the maze fades away under the desperate _need_ to burst into tears. The umbreon didn't help! It just screwed me over! The clock went way too fast! There was no way that an hour's gone past already!

Some of the walls flicker out of existence. Others groan as they descend back into the ground. I drop to the floor and sit there in the middle of a rapidly-emptying room, confused, upset and humiliated.

Neon balloons and confetti rain down from the ceiling.

Lamya walks down towards me, from the very steps I entered from. Shame and anger colour my face red when I see just how close I am to the starting point. All that time and I just went around in one big circle?

"Well trainer," says Lamya, smiling widely. Her lipstick is impossibly glittery and bright pink. She wears a one-piece that's alternating neon green and black squares and has a smile on her face like she's just seen a baby playing with a room full of puppies.

"Any comments?"

I manage to glare up at her and her _stupid_ neon. "You cheated," I accuse.

"I did."

"But you're not allowed to!" I protest. "You're meant to be a gym leader! You're not supposed to cheat!"

Darkness washes over me. Again I feel like I'm being deprived of all of my senses. When it vanishes, as quickly as it came, a sleek, black furred umbreon is sat beside Lamya, tail wagging, red rings on its fur glowing brightly.

"I train creatures of darkness," Lamya says, bending down to my height. "And as I'm sure you've noticed from your own vullaby, those pokémon don't play fair."

Mandy settles on my shoulder, shakes and puffs herself up. Lamya smiles at her.

"I need to go to Unova to get myself one of them." She stands up, still smiling and pulls a glow-band out of her pocket. "I cheated, but that's not what you were being tested on," she says as she snaps it around her wrist. "You want to go out into the wilds, into unfamiliar territories? Well I want to know how well you deal with that. Sometimes you won't be able to see what you're doing. Maybe you'll be deprived of your hearing. Even the terrain can give you trouble."

She runs a hand across her umbreon's head. "And you learnt the other lesson – never give a guide pokémon your complete trust. No matter what someone says when they lend you it, a pokémon is like a person – some might help you in any way they can, whereas others might just decide they don't like you and want to see you fail."

"And that's what you wanted from me?" I ask. "You didn't like me, so you made me fail?"

She laughs. "Think about this for a moment. I gave you a hostile environment – filled with my pokémon. In unfamiliar locations, the pokémon native there can and will use it against you. It's like guerrilla warfare – not that you'd know anything about that – in its truest, most brutal form. You overcame this. You noticed the zoroark playing with you. You managed to navigate in the dark and figure out that your 'guide' pokémon wasn't willing to help you all the way.

"And most importantly," she says, crouching to my level again, "when you were presented with instructions, you followed them. You didn't stop to argue, to contemplate. Sometimes when you're given instructions, you need to follow them perfectly. You did that." She stands up again, though this time she offers me her hand. "So it is my pleasure to tell you that you've officially earned my badge and my recommendation for the Anville College of History and Archaeology. Or ACHA. They really need a better acronym." She smiles at me. "Is there anything you'd like to say?"

I nod as I take her hand. "You wear _way_ too much neon."


	26. The Duke

_Dear Diary,_

_I begin tomorrow._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

**-O-O-O-**

**|The Duke|**

**-O-O-O-**

"So instead of taking a picture of the umbreon to show me, instead you've got a picture of some woman's neon hoo-ha? Should I be worried about you or about what you think of me?"

"I didn't mean to take pictures of _that_!" I explain, attempting to delete the photos even as my face burns bright red. I'm pretty sure that everyone in Saffron can probably use my face as a heating system or something. "It took me four days to hike back from Ebony to Saffron and all you do is complain that I didn't get a picture of that stupid umbreon," I mutter, even as I manage to find a picture I took after my test and show her. "See, I _still_ managed to get you a picture of it, even after the rotating maze and the pitch black and – you're not listening to me anymore, are you?"

"Yeah sure," Ali says, attention wrapped up completely on my phone.

"And Lamya was secretly a man," I say.

"That's cool."

"Oh and they discovered a new evolution of eevee that resembles people."

_That_ gets Ali's attention. I swear, mention the 'E' word around her and suddenly she hones in on the conversation. It could be happening on the other side of the building and she'd somehow know that people were talking about eevee.

"Bullshit," she says, handing me back my phone. "And you're not the first person to try that whole 'say random shit to see if they're listening' on me. It's more fun to play dumb and see what they say to get your attention. Sometimes it reveals interesting things about what people think about you."

I say nothing as I look at the raw eggs floating around in her milkshake glass. I don't think I need her to speak to find out interesting things about her. It reminds me of when one of the pokémon in Blaine's gym had stillbirths. They were half-formed eggs with creepy-looking _things_ that had only half-emerged and just looked like something that anyone would be forgiven for having nightmares about.

"I need the protein," Ali says, catching me staring at her eggshake. "I really have to hand it to Roark – he pulled out all the stops with this Dojo. I get to go back once a year for refresher training and to see how well I'm keeping up with my own training." She scrunches her eyes shut as she knocks back the eggs. I join her in making gagging noises. "It'd just be nice if there was a better way of getting the protein I need. I tried the shakes, but they just made me have massive man-shits."

I fail at not laughing when the little old ladies sat in the both behind Ali stop their conversation and give her evil looks. For her part, Ali shrugs and continues talking about it – mentioning _way_ too many details – until the little old ladies huff and start to talk between themselves again, this time louder than before.

"I'm gonna miss this place," Ali says, grinning. The diner is literally across the road from the Dojo, built into the skeleton of a disused coach. The waitresses all have boobs as big as their heads and tiny little skirts that I'm pretty sure are made out of paper napkins. The chef has a scizor helping her cook – and she looks just like it. Wide, bright red and with huge shoulders and a big body. The scizor flips pancakes like it was born for the job. I don't fail to notice the abra sleeping atop the fridge, snoring occasionally. At a grunt from the scizor it moans and stretches out a hand. The plates in the scizor's claws flash blue and vanish. They appear on the old ladies' table in the blink of an eye.

I grin and turn to look out of the window. People continue hurrying down the streets, oblivious to the diner. I can see the glow of the bright red letters that hang above the diner's window – _Women Only._

"If my dad knew about this diner, he'd actually dress up as a woman to sneak in," Ali says, happily talking around her food. "It's got his two favourite things; burgers and lesbians."

"I think Jerry would just stay staring through the window," I say, laughing. "And then he'd complain that we were allowed to go in and he wasn't." The thought of him walking past and seeing me in here with Ali makes me grin.

"How is Jerry?" Ali asks.

"He's okay," I say, shrugging. "He just got into Vermillion. I asked him if he went through Saffron to get there, but he said that he went the old school way – through the old Undergound or something?" I shrug again. "I said that he should have come through Saffron and seen you, but then he said that he didn't want to disturb you when you were training and stuff like that."

"Oh," Ali says. I catch the way her face falls just a little.

"But I told him I was going to Johto soon," I say, stirring my drink with my straw. I have to try not to smile as I see the way Ali's attention gets drawn back. "So he said that he'll come see me in Tohjo where our coach drops us off."

"Oh, that's cool," Ali says, apparently disinterested. I watch her out of the corner of my eye and catch the little smile she's too slow in hiding.

Satisfied with myself, I change the subject. "So what made you come to this place?" I ask, even as I pull out my phone and start writing a text.

"Believe it or not, that Dojo was full of guys being guys twenty-four seven. I needed somewhere to get away from them all. And besides," she says, grinning, "as if I _wouldn't_ go into a burger bar called _Babs' Baps_."

"Makes sense," I say, checking my lap as subtly as I can. I don't think she's noticed me texting, and if she has, apparently she doesn't care.

'_Ali's getting the coach with me. She'll be there when you come see me.' _I stop myself from grinning as I send the text to Jerry.

I haven't even managed to put my phone back into my pocket when it buzzes with a reply. _'Ali's gonna be there? Cool. She hadn't said anything about that.'_

I smile around my burger. Score one for little sister.

**-O-O-O-**

Cerulean is always shown on the tv and films as being a pretty paradise, full of water fountains, little boats on the canals with men that ferry you everywhere and beautiful flowers that bloom all year long. I think it's possible to count on one hand the amount of romance films that _haven't_ been set in Cerulean.

What all of them fail to mention is that Cerulean _stinks._

Walkways are balanced three foot above the water, as far as I can see. The streets and little bridges are built out of beige stones, polished enough to remain good to look at, but dirty enough so that the sun doesn't blind everyone by reflecting off the ground.

Creeping ivy slithers up some of the houses, built out of the same stone as the streets. I watch as a couple sat in a little gondola pass underneath the bridge I'm stood on, being ferried by a man who is _not_ good at singing, despite what people might have told him. I can see remoraid swimming alongside the boat – occasionally they all peer out of the water and take it in turns to try and spit the man's hat off his head.

"And they say romance is dead," Ali sighs as a remoraid spits the man's hat off. The couple in the gondola laugh and clap, as do a crowd of tourists that have gathered to watch. I guess that the people who carry on past, ignoring such a thing are all locals.

"At least it stopped him singing," I say.

Ali chuckles. The buildings on the sides of the canal are covered in advertisement paintings; everything from makeup to the Cerulean gym. I stop at one advertising _'Marlon the Mystic' _and point it out to Ali.

"He looks like he's wearing the world's tiniest magcargo on his chin," Ali says, tilting her head. "And why is it yellow? Dark skin and bleached hair can look good, yeah, but bleached _facial _hair?"

"He must be related to Lamya," I say. "How can a _psychic_ afford to advertise there? Aren't they all silly people who claim to see the future, then get stuck in traffic?"

"Not all of them," Ali says. We start walking down the road, towards the centre of Cerulean. All the streets look exactly the same. Cobblestones stop anything other than pedestrians and ponyta-drawn carriages from traversing them. "You've heard all the stuff about when the Rockets rose to power, right?"

"Yeah," I snort, "who hasn't?"

"Well then, Lady Know It All, do you know what happened in Cerulean at that time?"

I frown. "A little. Didn't they like blackmail the local leaders here and the Gym so that they'd be able to do stuff in the Cluster without everyone knowing about it?"

"It ties into what they did in Celadon, apparently." I notice the way we're skipping around the centre of town. Judging by the signs, I'd say Ali is leading us towards the Cape, so we can look at Cerulean Cave. "And Saffron. They raised the money in Celadon by owning almost all the casinos so that they could hire Silph to mass produce their latest technology at the time, which was capable of letting people see otherwise invisible ghost pokémon."

"I heard something about that," I say, remembering one of the teachers in school giving a talk on it. I think he was fired shortly afterwards though. "Didn't people start saying that the Rockets were good guys? That there was a powerful psychic in Cerulean and they were just trying to help?"

"That's the one," Ali says, nodding. The smell of canal water starts to fade. Mount Moon looms in the distance, impossible high. It feels like every step we take towards it makes it double in size. I can see the tourist spot at the end of the street – pose for your picture at the mouth of Cerulean Cave. Even though we're on the other side of the street, it's already filled with warning posters about the Cluster and its dangers.

The buildings start to thin out, replaced with wide open market spaces filled with little stalls. Tourists and trainers make up the bulk of the crowd. Ancient, worn posters are still stapled to the tips of some trees; notices for evacuation procedures and Rocket propaganda.

The '_mouth'_ of Cerulean Cave is a large open square, filled with tall, skinny trees that provide some shade. The ground is all bleached white stone, built in decorative rings around the trees and benches. A memorial stands in the middle of the square, listing the names of people who died fighting the Rockets. Closer to town is a water fountain, with a stone gyarados spitting water into the air. Names are carved into the black granite and white marble obelisks on either side of the fountain. The granite is a list of trainers, the white the names of pokémon and their species. All of them are dead or missing, claimed by the Cluster.

The fence at the end of the square is as tall as me and made out of spiraling black metal. The base of Mount Moon stands opposite, separated by a hundred-foot drop into a watery grave. As I lean against the fence, I can see an opening in the base of the mountain – Cerulean Cave and one entrance into the Cluster.

Two armed guards stand on either side of it, wearing brown camouflage shirts and trousers, each holding a large assault rifle. I'm too far away to see their faces, even if they weren't obscured by dark grey berets.

Ripples in the water are where pokémon are happily frolicking. The guards ignore them and the tourists shouting and pointing. A warning sign on the fence tells people it's an arrestable offence to throw things at the guards.

Because it makes _perfect_ sense to throw things at the huge, trained soldiers with fully loaded assault rifles.

Ali comes to join me, happily eating a bag of bright red candyfloss. When she offers me some, I get the mental image of that guy in Ebony wearing nothing but candyfloss. After I tell her why I don't want any, she makes a disgusted face and hands the bag to a screaming little girl.

"God, just being here makes me feel ill," Ali says, leaning on the fence. I have to admit that she looks a little green. I must look confused because she says, "The thing about the strong psychic that was here is true. It was that strong that it saturated the area in psychic energy, or something. Even now they're finding that the pokémon who live in this area are capable of psychic feats they thought only trainer pokémon could accomplish. And naturally, since I'm a fighter, I'm a little less tolerant to psychic mind-fuckery. Which means that I have one _hell_ of a migraine right now." She groans and puts a hand to her head. "Ah _foongus_ this hurts!"

"Oh," I say. A bubbling in the water below catches my eye, like something big is about to surface. As much as I want to stay and look, I turn to Ali. "Do you want to leave?"

She takes a breath and shakes her head. "I'll be fine. Part of my training means having to deal with stuff like this, so I'll just grit my teeth and endure it for as long as I can."

I open my mouth to say something, but the shouts of the crowd drown me out.

"Oh look, it's The Duke!"

"He's so cute!"

"He's got to be trained! No way a wild can be so intelligent."

I look at Ali, but she seems just as confused as me. The crowd are all staring down at the entrance to Cerulean Cave, where I can see a little blue blob next to the soldiers. It stands opposite them, its whole body inflating with each breath it takes.

One of the soldiers moves his gun. The blob copies his movements, pointing an invisible assault rifle to the sky.

The other guard starts doing jumping jacks. The blob watches him for a minute before mimicking him. The crowd goes wild, screaming and cheering.

"The Duke is a wild pokémon," Ali says, crouching down to my height. She holds her pokédex out in front of me, on our side of the fence, as if she thinks I might knock it down into the water. "Apparently he's a local celebrity around here, or something like it." She flicks the page for me to see a close-up photo of The Duke, taken with a smartphone. Up close, The Duke is less like a blob and more lean and muscular. His arms seem half-formed still, and his legs look like he's forgotten legs day at the gym for a few months – in Ali's words. His tummy is so white it's practically see through, with a black spiral swirling out from the middle. In the picture he's got a soldier's beret on his head and he's holding a tree branch like an assault rifle.

"He's a poliwhirl," Ali says, reading from the screen, "nearly, at least. They think he's about three years old, considering that he's halfway through the evolution from a poliwag. Apparently he started imitating the guards about six months ago, but before that he would sit near the entrance to the Cave, just watching them."

Ali shuts her pokédex and leans over the fence. "Gotta say, it'd be nice to have a poliwrath. They're fast swimmers and heavy-hitting fighters."

"I think you might have competition with the people here," I say, looking at them. "Or even the soldiers."

"True," she says. "And he's probably smarter than me." She sighs and scrunches her eyes shut in pain.

"We're going to the pokémon centre now," I tell her, taking her hand and leading her away. "You can't train yourself if you pass out in pain or something. Come on," I say, guiding her through the crowds of cheering people. "If everyone's here, we can go to the gym and book battles without having to wait hours for the queue to die down."

"Jeez," Ali laughs, "when did you become such a bossy boots?"

I turn my head to grin at her. "When you became a wuss."

In return, Ali picks me up, tips me upside down and carries me by my feet to the pokémon centre, cackling over my screams all the while.

**-O-O-O-**

The Cape of Cerulean is actually another part of Mount Moon, separated from the main body by countless centuries of natural erosion. From the Cape, it's possible to see over all of Eastern Kanto. A heavy fog sits continuously over Lavender, Ebony's buildings look like fingers reaching for the sky and ancient, crumbling ruins glow orange with the sun over them. Rock Tunnel looks like a giant onix from this distance, coiled up on itself, as if it laid down to sleep one day and never woke up.

I shudder at the thought of Rock Tunnel actually just being a dead, giant onix. It would mean all those people who go through it are just crawling through one massive corpse.

I let my feet dangle out underneath the wooden fence, swinging over a drop so large that it looks if I fell, like I'd never reach the bottom. A weathered old cottage is the only building on the cape, now a museum to the inventor of pokémon storage. Tech geeks pour into the museum, as if they might find some clue that will make them as rich and famous as Bill himself.

Cassie chortles from my lap. I hug her just a little bit tighter, far too aware of her history with leaping from tall places. Though the sun is still kinda high in the sky, I'm wearing a puffy winter coat, heavy gloves and two pairs of jeans. All so I can sit with Cassie in my lap. Even she shudders occasionally. Her breath manages to actually form crystals of ice, rather than just a mist. I can feel where horns are starting to grow through in her head. Her yellow fur is starting to fall out, replaced with thick white skin, as clear and cold as ice. Another year maybe and she'll start to become a glalie.

I try not to think about Cassie being a floating face of doom.

She looks up at me and chitters something, stopping to look at the sun. Her eyes are wide as she stares at it. I can imagine her thinking of freezing it and trying to gnaw her way through it.

"You're not allowed to touch the sun," I tell her, even if it's not what she's thinking. "You'd melt before you got too close to it. _I'd_ melt if I got too close."

Cassie looks at me, her eyes wide. I sigh and shake my head, allowing my mind to wander to Diz and his stalkerisms, to The Duke and Cerulean's love for him, to Lamya and why I forgot to ask her about Diz.

Cassie begins to dance in my arms as I hear someone jogging towards me. I turn to place her on solid ground and see her _roll_ towards Ali, instead of running.

Ali, for her part, stops running and looks down at Cassie. She's breathing heavy, her hair swept into a ponytail and slick with sweat.

"Have I ever told you that you have some _really_ weird pokémon?" she asks, shivering from Cassie's touch.

"I think Cassie's beyond weird," I say, stripping out of my winter clothes. I think when she becomes a glalie I'll need to invest in a full body suit like they wear in the movies. I make the note to look into training websites and what they recommend to wear whilst I'm on the coach.

Ali dances around Cassie, making sure not to touch her with her bare skin. I call Cassie back to me, wrap her in my puffy winter coat and hug her close to my chest. The fact that she squirms does _not_ make her any lighter or easier to hold onto.

"So?" Ali says pointedly.

I grin and show her my pokédex. Cerulean gym's badge lights up on my trainer card. "I had to fight an _octillery!"_ I gasp, remembering the way it wrapped itself around Kiki and just headbutted her into defeat. "Mandy just barely beat it! The krabby and the wartortle weren't too hard, but that was evil!" I sigh. "What did you have to fight?"

"Golduck, _vaporeon_," – her voice is full of jealousy – "and a tentacruel."

"Wow," I say, eyes wide.

"Still beat her though!" Ali declares, showing me her pokédex. "Hell yeah! I showed that mermaid who's boss! Just wait until you get to my level," she says, grinning, "things like octillery will be a pleasant dream compared to tentacle-monsters."

Somehow I manage to balance Cassie in one arm as I put my pokédex back into my pocket. Cassie, for her part, flails her legs as if she thinks she's running in the air. When I put her on the floor, thinking she wants to run around, she stares at me until I pick her up again, then starts flailing her legs one more.

"Still," I moan, "it beat Kiki! I only barely beat it with Mandy."

"Well what do you expect?" Ali grabs the fence and swings down so her legs dangle underneath. "You've got how many badges now?"

"Just two," I say. "I only got the one from Pewter normally. Ramos gave me his after I beat him in that tournament in Celadon."

"Don't forget your other three," Ali says. "You've got five badges already. An octillery isn't too bad, with that in consideration. Remember me telling you that I've already challenged the League here?"

I nod, even before I manage to remember it. "Didn't you say that you'd trained at the Fighting Dojo in Saffron too? Wasn't that the same one as Roark got you into?"

"Yes and no," she says, smiling. "Same building, different training, teachers, everything. The one Roark got me into was training that you have to be recommended for by someone high up. A gym leader can recommend you, as can one of the Dojo _sensei. _Or an Elite, if you ever made friends with one of them. But now Roark got me into it and I've completed it, I can enroll myself on any courses or training they do. That's why I was so happy."

"Oh. Wow," I say, not really knowing what else to say.

"Exactly. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that I've already gotten eight badges from Kanto. I've gotten eight from Johto and the three from Unova. So I had sixteen badges – now I've gotten the seventeenth. You can't challenge a league unless you have eight badges from their region, but the gyms will base their teams on how many badges you have, regardless of where you got them from."

"Oh," I grunt. Then realisation sets in. _"Oh_. That's why Janine was so horrible to me!"

"Probably," she says. "So now you've gotten another one, prepare for them to get stronger again. I was lucky – at about the tenth badge, water gyms sometimes pull out a gyarados. My next one probably won't be so nice. I figured that since I'm here and I've done the Kanto circuit before, I can aim for the full twenty and then probably head over to Sinnoh like I planned to, before I ended up in Unova for Sean."

I grunt an acknowledgement. Now that it's getting later in the day, more people are starting to come up to the Cape. Couples sit on the benches, on the grass and even on the fence, all so that they can watch the sun begin to set together. I look at Ali and laugh as she rolls her eyes and stands.

"Come on," she says, turning to head back. "If I have to watch public indecency _en masse_ I might just projectile vomit everywhere."

"Seeing you do that might stop them though," I tell her. I look at the museum, watching the people emerge and head straight to the peak of the Cape. Cassie's _still_ happily running in my arms, pretending she can fly.

I groan when I see a bunch of neon emerge from the museum. Sure enough, she sees me, smiles and begins to walk towards me.

"Prepare your eyes," I warn Ali.

"Hm? What are you – oh foongus that shouldn't be allowed out in public."

Lamya's skirt runs down to her ankles and is orange as a setting sun. Her sleeveless top is mercifully black, but she wears glowbands all up her arms, each a different colour of neon. Her hair is held back by a bright orange hairband, glowing as much as her skirt.

"Small world," she says, smiling at me. Her lips are bright green today, her eye shadow disastrously red. She looks at Ali. "Sister?"

"No," I say, shaking my head. "This is Ali. She's my best friend."

Lamya smiles at her. With that green lipstick, she looks like some form of supervillain. I wouldn't be surprised if she opened her mouth and spewed green mist.

"Nice to meet you," Ali says. "Why are you here, if you don't mind me asking?"

Lamya just smiles again. _Jeez_ she's creepy when she does that. "No trouble. Mind if I walk back with you to the city – if that's where you're going?"

Ali looks at me to check. "It's fine," she says. I squeeze Cassie in the hopes it'll stop me from sighing. I really don't need people judging me for talking to Lady Fashion Victim.

"I'm certain that you both know about Cerulean Cave," Lamya says, pointedly ignoring the way people look twice at her. The way we're going is mostly downhill, which means that Cassie's struggles make me likely to lose my footing with each step. "It's an open secret that the lands around it are saturated with psychic energy."

"Yeah," I say, nodding.

"Well, Sabrina can only be called upon so many times before it spirals out of even her control," Lamya says. "From what we've seen, the use of psychic pokémon near Cerulean Cave tends to make the nearby pokémon aggressive. Unsurprising really, given that the majority of them were enslaved into acting as guards for a single, powerful psychic entity.

"Which I suppose, is where I come in," she says, checking her nails – that are painted _bright pink._ "I'm the leader of a gym specialising in psychic's antithesis. Once a month, I come here to make sure that the psychic growth isn't expanding too rapidly. Since I'm adapted to be resistant to psychic intrusions, it makes dealing with the psychics here far easier."

"What exactly do you do here though?" I ask. "You can't just turn up and banish psychicness away."

Cassie squirms awkwardly in my arms when Lamya smiles at me. "Sometimes it's as simple as releasing a few psychic-resistant pokémon into the ecosystem. Other times I may have to travel into the Cluster and capture or eliminate strong specimens. Or sometimes, like today, I have my pokémon cover portions of the cave in sensory-depriving darkness. It forces the psychic pokémon to flee elsewhere in the Cluster, spreading out their influence and weakening the burden Cerulean feels." She sighs, not through boredom, but with a sound of tiredness that she doesn't otherwise show. "It would have made sense for me to take the gym here in Cerulean, but it's too tied in with water shows and the city's canals and water treatment. Added to that, I can't swim."

I see Nugget Bridge sprawled out before us, shining like it's made out of gold. Massive posters advertise the standard challenge – beat all of the trainers on the bridge and get an invitation to join the Nugget Tournament in Cerulean. Personally, I think the name sounds stupid, but there's still a queue of trainers lining up to get their tickets. For those that don't want to battle, there are two walkways on either side of the bridge, separated from the battle area by the same sort of reinforced plastic walls that the League stadiums use.

"Is there anything else you can do to help out?" I ask. "Something that gets rid of psychic abilities for a short term?"

Lamya folds her arms and looks at me. From the corner of my eye, I see Ali turn to look at me too. "If you're going to ask a question, be direct about it," Lamya says. "This is something you want to know for yourself, not for the good of Cerulean, am I right?"

With it put like that, I can't help but fidget uncomfortably. "I have a hypno," I tell her. "Well, he's not officially my pokémon, but he comes in and helps me every so often. But…"

"You're worried that his intentions may not be as pure as he says they are?" Lamya finishes, smirking.

"Something like that."

She sighs. "There's no one size fits all method of dealing with psychics. Most psychic gyms will offer your mental training to deal with making your emotions and thoughts less readable by psychics. Others can train you in resisting mental attacks. Most people seem to think that wearing a necklace or a tiara out of dark pokémon bones will help you prevent psychics from reading your locations. It won't."

She falls silent as she watches trainers filter out into Nugget Bridge and approach some of the official trainers who are sitting around, waiting for challengers. I remember reading that it's a pretty lucrative job to do – so long as you can handle standing around for like hours on end with nothing to do, should there be no trainers lining up to compete.

"People say a lot about psychics and dark pokémon without ever knowing what they're talking about," Lamya says, still watching the bridge. With the sun on her, she seems to glow. It's getting to the point where I have to squint to be able to see her properly.

"And you know what you're talking about, I presume?" Ali asks.

"The brain is full of electrical impulses – that's why electrical pokémon can be dangerous to be around and also why they can cause havoc for psychics, should they be trained well enough. Psychics are capable of turning these electrical impulses into wavelengths, similar to those we use to see or hear. Each pokémon does it slightly differently, which is why some can create illusions, others can read minds and why some can force your mind into doing something. Excepting for things like telekinesis and teleportation, most psychic activities revolve around converting those electrical impulses. The standard rule is that if you have a functioning brain, you can receive those wave-born electrical impulses."

I nod, barely able to keep up with what she's talking about. Ali seems to understand it far more than I do, which isn't really surprising.

"Let's call them brainwaves, for now," Lamya says, still not looking at us. She's moved from watching the bridge – I notice that in fact, she's watching the base of Mount Moon, as if she expects some psychic demon to emerge out of there, vaporising everything within its line of sight. "Psychics use these brainwaves as a form of attack, defence and communication. The brains of fighters are less receptive of these brainwaves, which is why they tend to get migraines or feel nauseous around them.

"Pokémon of darkness have a natural… _resistance_ to such brainwaves." She shrugs, almost like she's not certain about what she's saying. "Think of when you're trying to tune a radio and you get nothing but static. Or the sound over electrical systems when a phone signal beings to interfere. That's what dark pokémon are for psychics – the weakest are just like a small form of interference, the strongest are like a jamming signal, preventing them from doing anything."

Cassie, apparently having had enough of the sun on her, leaps from my arms and sits on the ground by my feet, freezing blades of grass and crunching them noisily. Lamya and Ali don't pay her any attention.

"So essentially you come here and erect massive jamming signals once a month?" Ali says.

"Essentially," Lamya confirms. "The problem is of course, that the psychics eventually grow stronger than the methods we use to counteract them. So instead of constantly challenging them to grow stronger, we try to distract them, to disrupt their routines and force them around the Cluster. It's far better to have a group of agitated psychics spread out through the Cluster than one small collection of monstrously strong psychics near a human settlement." She hugs her arms. "We struggled to deal with one. Imagine the damage if there were ten. Or twenty."

"Or a hundred," Ali whispers.

"Exactly," Lamya says, nodding. "Even the non-psychics here are growing stronger in psychic abilities. The likes of venonat and poliwrath have always known to be capable of psychic acts, but it's as if they've achieved an advancement of three generation's worth of strength in less than one generation." She sighs, finally looking away from the Cave. She looks at me, down to Cassie and smiles a little, though it doesn't seem to reach her eyes. "That's why I can't answer your question. The simple answer is simply; _I don't know._ Without an explanation, I doubted you would have accepted my answer. Most people struggle to, even in fields of academia.

"Your best bet is to go to a psychic gym, as I suggested and go through forms of mental training there," she says, looking at Ali and me. "Whenever this hypno is around, keep your vullaby on your shoulders, or close to you. That's the only advice I can offer. Sorry it's not more useful."

"It's okay," I say, even though I'm kinda disappointed. "Thanks."

"Well," she says, "on that note, I do have places to be." She shakes mine and Ali's hands, waves and then walks across Nugget Bridge, taking the non-challenger's paths, much to the _loud_ displeasure of people already on the bridge.

"That sucks," Ali says, sighing. "Guess I should consider investing in a scraggy. Or travel to Kalos and hunt for something there. Otherwise I'm going to be at the mercy of psychics." She groans. "They need to discover an electrical fighter. Right!" She claps her hands and grabs my shoulder. "Since that's a load of depressing news we didn't need, we're going to go beat up some trainers!"

Cassie leaps to her feet and begins running around our legs, chortling all the while.

"See, she knows exactly how to feel!" Ali laughs. "I've still got Jude and Cap with me, so I'm good to beat up a few."

"I've just got Cassie," I say, watching her round around us. "Let's go along the waterfront." I start walking towards it, only to stop when Ali doesn't follow me. "You wanted to train, didn't you? All the psychic brainwaves or whatever they are have to be stronger around here. Lamya said they've been releasing dark pokémon around here, so maybe we can befriend some houndour and have them help you."

Ali grins. "You just want to try and catch a houndour still, don't you?"

"Maybe."

Thankfully she begins to follow me towards the waterfront. "I thought you didn't want one, after being chased through Lamya's maze by one."

I frown. "Not at first. But now I want one even more, because that one blended into the dark and managed to breathe fire _and_ track me enough to keep finding me. Plus I need a fiery pokémon. My parents keep telling me that I'm going to run out of matches or flint and be unable to make a campfire one day. I really _don't_ want to prove them right in that case."

"Yeah, that'd suck." The waterfront sounds primarily of the waves crashing against the side of the tiny little rock beach. Waist-high grass tickles my legs, following a tight path around the base of Mount Moon. It's essentially a natural sort of pier, but without the amusement rides or the hotdogs or popcorn.

Plus people hardly ever come along it because Nugget Bridge attracts so much more attention.

In fact, I can see only one other person along the waterfront with us – a shirtless man practicing some form of punchy-kicky martial arts with a hitmonlee.

"Well, once you reach Johto, I think you should start hunting for something there," Ali tells me. "A vulpix maybe? Ninetales are pretty awesome. Maybe a slugma? Though they always look a bit clueless. Or maybe – hey wait, is that guy practising kenpo with a hitmonlee?"

She doesn't even stick around for me to answer, instead taking off like a shot towards him. Cassie chases after her, skipping through the grass, only to stop when she realises I'm not following her. From what I can hear of Ali's conversation, it sounds like jibberish in another language. Moments later she dances backwards a few steps and lets out Cap. Her sawk offers a bow to the hitmonlee and drops into a fighting stance.

I sigh. "Looks like it's just me and you, Cassie."

Predictably, she takes that moment to run towards the water and dive in head first.

Moments later she resurfaces, spluttering, flailing and yet laughing. I consider running down the pebble-beach towards her, but stop when I see that she's made a little platform of ice to stand on. She happily dances on her little ice-barge and quickly finds a way to blow ice into the water to steer herself along the river.

With nothing else to do, I sit on the pebbled beach and begin flicking through my pokédex, searching for more information on everything Lamya mentioned. Of course, everything I can find is just _way_ too smart for me. I feel like I'm doing the mental equivalent of bashing my head against a brick wall whenever I read anything about it all.

Whenever I look up from my pokédex, Cassie is still happily steering her ice-barge and Ali is still battling against hitmonlee-dude. I sigh. With Cassie occupied by her own crazy, there really isn't much for me to do. Instead I end up flicking through random websites, trying to do a bit of studying for my school, but instead end up spending the whole time doing absolutely nothing.

I glance up from my pokédex when I hear the sound of Cassie's chitters change. It sounds more like she's trying to hold an actual conversation with something.

I'm left wondering just how I could be so unaware of my surroundings when I see The Duke stood above me, his mouth frothing with bubbles.

I scream, try to jump backwards and instead only manage to flail like a trapped squirtle. The Duke picks up my pokédex, turns it over in his hands and holds it up to his eyes, like he's trying to figure out just what it says. He grunts something that almost sounds disappointed as he holds the pokédex out towards me.

I glance back and see that Ali is still wrapped up in her battle. A few people on Nugget Bridge have noticed The Duke with my pokédex and I can see them starting to stand and watch.

"Uh, thanks," I say stupidly, taking my pokédex from him. I try my best to ignore the fact that it now feels like it's covered in a layer of slime.

He grunts and presses a finger into his other hand. I stare at him, completely confused and he repeats the gesture a few more times.

"You want me to show you how to use it?" I guess.

He croaks an answer. His body actually swells up like a balloon, spilling more bubbles from his mouth.

"That didn't help," I say. He croaks again, spitting bubbles a bit more frequently. Cassie comes back from her little ice-raft and sits by The Duke's feet, staring up at him with wide eyes.

"Okay," I grunt. "Nod for yes," I say, showing him the movement, "and shake for no." Again I show him what to do. Belatedly, I realise where there may be a small problem. "Do you understand what yes and no mean?"

He nods his head.

"Okay," I say.

He shakes his head.

"Now I'm just confused."

Croaking, he sticks a finger between the pebbles and starts moving them, almost like he's trying to write. His arms a little and almost like they're half-formed. It means he's almost face-first on the ground as he tries to write.

"Are you trying to write?" I guess. He bounces his head up and down. He attempts to write again, but it mostly looks like the sort of things I drew when I used to draw on the walls.

"This is going to take too long," I groan. "Okay, watch me." I clear a patch of rocks until I can see the soft ground underneath, grab a sharp enough rock and draw into the ground quickly. "That's an 'a'," I tell him, pointing at it.

The Duke bends down next to it and traces it with his finger. He croaks, almost like he's trying to say 'a'.

"Can you write it?" I ask him. He traces it once more before attempting to draw next to it. His version looks like something I could write with my feet, but it's vaguely recognisable. We get all the way up to 'g' before I start to realise how long this is going to take.

"I don't think we have enough time for this," I tell him.

For his part, The Duke looks absolutely _heartbroken_. He grunts something at Cassie and she turns and chitters at me, as if she's admonishing me for abandoning him.

"I'm sorry," I tell him, "but this isn't something I can do in a day. You're smart, but this would take way more time than – hey!"

I swipe at him and try to grab my bag that he's stolen from the floor. He grunts as he roots through it, apparently finds nothing of use and croaks something that sounds annoyed. I grip Cassie's poké ball, planning to recall her and run if The Duke gets too angry.

Instead he blasts my hand with water and knocks Cassie's poké ball flying. I cry out, stretching after it, but he's faster. He bounds over to it and with a sound like laughter, raises the ball and smacks himself over the head with it.

If anything, he looks _more_ confused than I do about it. He grunts and smacks himself again, once, twice, three times before finally dropping the ball to the ground, upset.

"You want me to catch you?" I guess. The Duke nods happily. "Okay," I say, uncertain, as I reach for my bag. No sooner do I retrieve an empty poké ball and point it at him does he start shaking his head, pointing at Cassie.

I sigh. Of course this wouldn't be so easy. I can see that Ali's stopped her battle and she's watching me from a distance, Cap and the guy on either side of her. My heart beats just a little faster. I pretend that she isn't watching.

"Cassie," I command. She runs to my feet, bounces up and down and breathes a cloud of frost at The Duke.

He looks smug. It's almost like he's taunting us, searching for weaknesses when he blows out a slow stream of bubbles that Cassie freezes without a command.

I quickly throw on the puffy winter jacket I've been carrying and pull the hood tight around my head. "Start a hailstorm," I say, tucking my bag underneath my jacket.

Cassie's cackles swirl through the air. The Duke's eyes widen, as if he's realised he's made some horrible mistake. He takes a breath and spits out a torrent of water at Cassie. The winds around her pick up, steal the water and swirl it around her like a whirlpool. She becomes hidden under the water, a shadow beneath it. The clouds above us darken and turn grey. Thunder and lightning roar and flash.

Hailstones the size of my fist hammer down from the sky. The whirlpool around Cassie freezes and breaks into huge chunks of swirling ice. The wind howls. Snow and slurry bury the beach. Cassie's cackles echo from every direction.

The Duke races towards Cassie, both arms raised and glowing. He brings them down on her, but at the last moment she splits into three. Each of them leap into the air, dancing and laughing in stereo. As they bounce up and down, circling around him, the real Cassie leaps out from the snowstorm and smashes her skull into The Duke's.

He falls to the ground, eyes unfocused, bleeding from the head. The first poké ball I throw gets carried away by the whipping hailstorm, carried off to Johto for all I know. I give the second to Cassie. She runs in, poké ball held in her tiny little arms and smacks it against The Duke's leg.

He dissolves into bright red energy. Even though the winds are howling against my ears, somehow I'm certain I can hear the poké ball humming as it struggles to contain The Duke.

Finally it stills. Cassie bounces up and down, her clones vanishing. The winds die down and drift away, leaving the waterfront covered in a blanket of winter. The clouds vanish as if they were never there, letting the sun return to the sky. I grin as I take the poké ball from Cassie and hold it in my palms.

It's at that moment that I look up and see Ali smiling. The man she battled is impossible to read.

More than them, I see the whole of Nugget Bridge staring, their eyes wide.

"Oh," I say, looking up to them and seeing the crowd, all with phones out, recording everything. "Oops."


	27. Interlude II

_**Pokémon**_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Interlude II|<strong>

**\**_Joseph Finch_**/**

**-O-O-O-**

"_Cerulean City's local poké-celebrity known as 'The Duke' was sensationally captured yesterday! The Duke is known as a local hero among the Cerulean community in Kanto – his acts of seemingly child-like curiosity towards human culture have endeared him towards the local populace and even the local gym leader._

"_But now, it seems that he's found a new home – with a trainer from the far-away region of Unova, of all places. As you can see here from the amateur footage, it appears that this trainer spent nearly an hour talking to The Duke, even going so far as teaching him what professional symbologists have discerned as the alphabet."_

Joe Finch sighs from the comfort of his armchair. The house still feels too-new, even after buying all new furnishings and spending nearly a solid month redecorating it to his wife's ever-changing tastes. He sips at a mug of coffee and stares in disdain at the mahogany walls of their living room. Another two weeks and she'll decide they have to be bright yellow. Perhaps she'll want the wooden floors taken up and replaced with purple carpets.

"Am I meant to care about this?" he moans to the television. Mounted on the wall, it offers no answer. His kadabra sits by his feet, curled up and sleeping. The black leather armchair still feels too new, he decides, sipping at his coffee again. It isn't worn in the places he likes, molded to his form or –

-The television shows a picture of The Duke's new trainer and he drops the mug to the floor.

His kadabra catches it in a bright blue glow before it breaks and spills. He doesn't notice. Instead he fumbles for the remote, hitting buttons wildly as he screams, "Carol! Carol! Get here, _now!"_

She appears in the doorway less than a second after he pauses the television on their daughter's face.

"What?" she asks, looking at him first. "If this is to show me that Bruce caught your mug before it spilled, I'm really not in the mood."

She looks tired. They both _feel_ tired. Months of moving constantly and they've only just managed to settle somewhere it seems that they'll be able to stay. His tiredness loses out to a sense of stupefied fear as he points the remote at the television screen.

"Shit," his wife mutters. They stand there for a minute, staring in silence at the television screen, ignorant to the kadabra laying on the floor, levitating a mug of warm coffee at eye-level.

He runs a hand through the few strands of hair he has left. "We really need to have words with her about how she's meant to be _hiding_ from this sort of attention," he mutters, searching for his phone.

"She's only ten, Joe," Carol whispers, "she's not going to think about smartphones or people with tablets at every given moment of every day. Don't you remember her saying that her hypno _killed_ people that were following her? In the middle of Saffron?"

"That's not the point," he says, rescuing the phone from the side of his armchair. "She needs to be smarter about this. We've spent months moving from place to place. A middle-aged husband and wife without any kids at home and only a kadabra, a pidgeot, a mr mime and an arcanine between them tend to draw attention after some time. Let's not forget that two days after that hypno of hers killed the men following her, someone broke into our hotel room and tried to take _us_."

"I know," Carol says, her voice barely a whisper.

"Then you'll understand why I'm saying this," he says, holding the phone out.

"I don't care," she says, snatching the phone from him. "We agreed, didn't we? When she found that phione – when Craig and his mother vanished – _when we found his mother's dead body –_ we agreed that we wouldn't tell them how bad things are. It's better for them to be blissfully ignorant than to be looking over their shoulders all the time."

"Then what do we do?" Joe whispers, feeling useless. He struggles against the urge to fall back into his armchair. Collapsing now would feel like he was admitting he couldn't help them. He takes a breath as he remembers the hotel room in Littleroot and the faces of the men who broke in. The faces of the men with silenced pistols.

The faces of the men who were surprisingly easy to kill and dispose of.

"David left me the names of people we could call," Carol says, still clutching his phone, her hands bone-white. "He always worried that if something happened to him, they might come after us. They're people we can trust."

"Are these the same people that set him up? Their entire squad was wiped out Carol. An _inside job_, remember?"

"I remember!" she hisses, throwing the phone at him. Bruce catches it before it hits him, but he still flinches. "He was my brother; of course I remember how he died! God, do you even _think_ before you speak anymore?"

The phone hovers between them, next to the coffee mug, glowing equally as blue. Joe sighs and rubs his temples.

"I'm sorry," he says. He means it. The television still has their daughter's face displayed in high-definition for them to see. She looks so happy, so _innocent_ that he can't bring himself to shatter that bubble. He's not an idiot – he can tell by the footage that she's more confident, more secure in her decisions. She looks like a younger version of Carol, but with his brown, untameable hair. She's caught the sun and it even seems like she's started her growth spurt.

If what their children have told them is correct, then the vague form of the woman with the sawk in the distance behind her is Alison, their friend and travelling companion.

"I just feel so useless," he admits.

"You're not," Carol tells him. She takes his hand, squeezes it and leans her head on his shoulder, staring at the picture of their daughter. "She's growing up and there's nothing we can do to stop that. We just need to do everything in our power to make sure the people invested in finding out about that phione never get close to her."

He turns to hold her, tucks her head beneath his chin and keeps him close to her, breathing in the smell of her shampoo. It's the moments like this that he wants to hold onto forever – even with a coffee mug and a phone hovering at eye-level behind his wife.

"I'll see if I can fiddle some numbers," he says reluctantly. "Move it so that the right people have the bribes in place."

She holds him just that little bit tighter. "I don't like you doing this, Joe. It's dangerous."

"It's Rocket money," he says, as if that makes it better. He knows it doesn't. Those accounts were locked down by the police years ago. If anyone ever looks at the money and sees that it's gone missing, there will be questions asked. David should never have put the idea in their heads to use the money, much less have given them the means to do so. "I'll move it through a system of off-shore accounts and no-one will be able to trace it."

"Internet café?" she asks.

"Have to do one in Kalos this time," he grunts. Carol stiffens in his arms. "I know, it's a risk since we live here now. But I've done it from every country but so far. If there's a void from Kalos, they'll notice something is wrong."

"If the encryptions and relays are set up right, they'll never know, right?"

"They'll never know," he says. "But computers aren't where my talents lie – nor are they yours. If they ever get close enough to start seeing where it's actually coming from, at least it's always sent from a different country, from a different internet provider, through a different set of channels and –"

"-I get the picture," she says. "I just wish there was a better way."

"You said it yourself – we agreed to keep the kids in the dark about all of this." Reluctantly, he lets go of her and claims the levitating objects. Bruce grunts as if to say _finally_ before sitting in Joe's chair and falling asleep there. "The fact that you know people high up enough to hold some sway gives us some options, at least. I still say it was a risk to get Ramos to do what he did in that battle."

"We had to make sure," Carol says, pulling away from him. "When that trevenant broke apart and started circling, it would have disrupted any psychic locks on her – it's probably why her hypno hasn't been in touch with her, like she said. The people I know – the leaders and Elites I can trust are doing what they can to hide information about her. That _girl_ we hired is making sure the rest isn't snowballing out of control either."

"I know," he says. Words he's said a thousand times and words he'll probably say a thousand times more. "I should go. Lock up behind me." He hugs her again, kisses her forehead. "Password is where we had our first date."

She nods and squeezes him as if it's the last time she'll see him. "I love you," she whispers.

"I love you too," he tells her. "Bruce." His kadabra leaps off the chair and races to the front door, unlocking the locks in a fraction of a second. Joe forces himself to leave without looking back. Each time he leaves the house is harder than the last. Each time feels like it's the last time he'll ever feel safe.

The locks on the door remind him of a jail cell as they're slammed into place. He slides the wooden façade shut over their metal door, disguising their house as a regular little hut in Laverre, rather than the repurposed bomb shelter that it actually is.

He touches the poké ball on the chain around his neck. His mr mime sleeps there, content to hide away from the world. His kids have never liked it – and to be honest with himself, he's never been too fond of him either.

Joe walks aimlessly into the woods until he's certain that he's lost. "Alright Bruce," he says, holding out a hand. "Do your thing."

The world flashes blue. Orange-leaved trees and yellow-stained glass fade in an instant, replaced with an ever-reaching expanse of nothingness. The mist below is so thick that he can barely see where it begins. Frigid winds slap his face.

Bruce walks along the edge of the cliff next to him, his eyes glowing blue. _"We're alone now,"_ he says, speaking into his mind.

"Thanks." He walks to the edge of the cliff, takes a deep breath and screams. He screams in rage. He screams in fear. He screams in sheer terror that his little girl will never get to grow up or that he'll never be around to see it.

He screams until his voice is hoarse and he tastes blood in his mouth. The sounds of sobbing break through his ears and he finds his cheeks damp. His body spasms with each new sob, as if they might snap him in two. Alone, at the top of Mount Coronet, he curls in on himself, sobbing like a scared, defenceless child.

It takes five minutes for the fit to pass. Another ten until he's certain he can face the world without breaking down.

"Come on Bruce," he says, injecting false cheer into his voice. "Pick a city in Kalos."

In a flash of light, Joseph Finch and his kadabra vanish. To the world, he is any normal middle aged trainer and father of two. Only to Mount Coronet is he the broken man.


	28. Conceal, Don't Feel

_I… I failed._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Conceal, Don't Feel|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

I think that when people designed coaches, they decided to make them as boring as possible. As the minutes crawl into hours that crawl into what feels like _forever_, I find myself growing ever irritable.

The coach is almost empty, which means that Ali and I have occupied the space of eight seats at the back of the coach. She leans back, her feet up against the seat opposite her, Cap squished in against the window seat and her gurdurr sat opposite him.

"Sam," Ali says, not even opening her eyes. Her gurdurr stops fidgeting instantly and becomes immensely interested in the continuous _nothing_ outside. Hour three inside a tunnel means that the thrill has long worn off.

Kiki sits opposite me, sulking like a little child. I like to think it's because she doesn't like travelling backwards, but I know full well what the actual reason is.

The Duke, or Duke, as I call him now, sits almost curled up in my lap, my history book in front of him. I have a couple of sheets of paper with the alphabet spelt out in large letters, both in lower and upper case.

Ali leans on my shoulder. "You're really determined to teach him, aren't you?"

I nod, practiced enough with Mandy on my shoulder that I don't disrupt her. "He wants to learn," I say, pointing to a letter of the alphabet, not paying attention to what one. Duke croaks an answer that sounds vaguely like an 'o'. When I look up and see that _is_ the letter I'm pointing at, I grin.

"Teaching him to talk will take forever," Ali points out.

"That's okay," I say. "He's picking up reading well. I don't even have to break up the words for him anymore." It reminds me of being back in school and having to teach the younger kids how to read. Thing is, Duke manages to read a lot quicker than most of them, even though I can't really understand him. What he says is garbled, almost senseless. But it's easy to hear the frustration in his voice when he can't understand something. I can't help but wonder if it's a side effect of him having grown up near Cerulean Cave, or if he's just actually so smart.

Duke grunts something, pointing at a picture of a mummified skeleton, its bandages peeled back and exposed. He continues pointing at it with one hand whilst his other moves to the alphabet and points at one single letter.

'_Y'_. Why.

"Why?" I say it aloud for him. He nods, poking the picture. "Why does this look like that? Or why did they do it?"

He nods twice and pokes the picture twice, grunting all the while.

From my shoulder, Ali groans. I ignore her as I explain to Duke the ways in which ancient cultures treated their dead, and how it differs from our modern day perceptions. I'm pretty sure Ali actually falls asleep at one point.

At the end, Duke looks at me, his eyes wide. Kiki's glower is almost loud enough to break the silence that follows.

Finally, Duke croaks, again pointing to the same letter.

"I just told you why," I say.

He shakes his head, points to 'y' twice. I feel stupid when it takes me longer than it should to process my pokémon's request. "Why… the reasons behind everything I just told you?"

He nods. I suppress the urge to groan. And here I thought that having a pokémon actually understand everything I say would make things easier.

I look up when I feel the coach slow to a stop. More people are getting on the coach - though Ali and I were sharing it with one other person, aside from the driver - and I see the way one boy looks at Duke before he decides to sit in the seats in front of us.

I try to ignore him and instead focus as best I can on teaching Duke a bit more. Ali's tensed by my side, which lets me know that she's noticed the way the boy was staring too. He looks like he's just a bit younger than her, with hair stained in a random assortment of colours, almost like he's been dragged through a berry bush and whatever's stuck to him is what colour he's decided to use. There's some red, green, purple and even some blue hidden in the mess he calls hair.

I hope it's a wig. At least then he'd have the chance to take it off and look normal.

Duke grunts and points at the boy's hair. I struggle not to laugh as Duke points to 'y' again. Ali catches it and is a lot less subtle about her laughter - she snorts and cackles in one breath.

When the grand total of three people get on the coach and we start moving again, Rainbow-Head turns around and smiles at me.

He has one blue eyebrow and one green.

That's when Ali and I both erupt into a mass fit of giggles.

"Take it away!" Ali moans, holding her stomach. "I can't cope!" She doesn't care that the boy seems both confused and hurt by our sudden laughter. I mean seriously, if my hair looked like that, I'd laugh every time I looked in the mirror.

The boy slams himself down in his seat, but that only makes Ali laugh louder. She's actually crying by the time she stops laughing and people in the coach have turned to look at us, apparently fearing for our sanity.

But I know it has to be funny when I see that even Kiki is smirking.

Cap has to endure Ali leaning against him, still giggling randomly. Sam just looks around in what I've realised is a continual scrutinising of everything to see if it can replace the big metal girder that gurdurr are named for.

Moments after we quiet down, the boy spins around in his chair again. Ali manages to bite her tongue, but instead I hear a high-pitched whine coming from her that I wasn't certain humans could make.

For my part, I have to suck in a deep breath and try my best to hold it as he raises his green eyebrow at us both.

"I can't!" Ali wails and erupts into laughter once more.

The boy sighs and shakes his head.

"Come on," Ali says, struggling for breath, "you should be… you should be used to this… by now!" She has to take a deep breath to try to control herself. The only problem is that when we meet each other's eyes, both of us lose all control and begin laughing again.

Duke, for his part, croaks a strange sound that just makes it worse. Even as Kiki titters and undoubtedly tells me off, I just can't stop laughing at the way his blue and green eyebrows do a little dance on his face. They're like little caterpie shrunk down and doing the hula on his face!

"Okay," I say, breathing slowly, "I'm okay." It takes me a moment to try and compose myself. "Hi," I say, pinching myself and trying to pinch Ali at the same time, all without the boy noticing.

"Hi," he says, grumpy.

Duke croaks, searching for attention, pointing to the 'y' again. I have to bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood before I'm sure I won't start laughing again.

"So," the boy says, "you're the girl that caught The Duke, aren't you?"

That's enough to make me stop wanting to laugh immediately. Even Ali manages to sober up and look like she's ready to throw the boy out of the coach at a moment's notice.

I think he notices the way all our pokémon - save for Duke - tense around us. "I saw the video online," he says quickly, "and I just wanted to see if it was true. All the videos have been taken down - someone put a virus in them or something, so when people have watched or downloaded them, it's wiped itself and random data from their computers or whatever they watch it from."

"Really?" I ask, wondering just who could have managed such a thing. I'm pretty sure no one I know has the technical knowledge to do such a thing - even my parents. Unless they happen to have a porygon lying around that I'm not sure about - or Dad's creepy mr mime has snuck into people's houses at night and scared the bejeezus out of them (and it's totally capable of doing such a thing. That thing is Creepy) - I don't think it's any of them.

"You don't know anything about that, do you?" he asks, dejected.

"Nope," I say. I shake my head for good measure. Duke croaks and copies me. He even puts a book on his head and shakes it like it's hair, just to copy me. I shriek and have to fight him to claim the book back. I don't want his slimy skin all over my books. They're my books. No one is making them all slimy or whatever!

I get the feeling that I'm almost like Craig's mum. Where she was the crazy-cleany lady, I'm the crazy-don't-mess-my-books-up sort of person.

That's a really depressing thought.

"So this is The Duke, isn't it?" he asks, staring at Duke. Kiki takes the opportunity to stand up in her chair and glower at him. I notice that she seems to be growing - even to the point where she doesn't really resemble a typical maractus anymore. I need to talk to Dad and see just where he got her from. I know that some pokémon can take on appearances of one of their parents - like sceptile can have pretty draconic looking treecko if they mate with a salamence - so I need to know more about my pokémon.

And of course, that makes me think that since Jerry gave me Mandy, she's going to develop three heads and start randomly drooling on me. Even though I know that's impossible because mandibuzz are all female and Jerry's dodrio is female too, but since lesbian human couples can have babies somehow, can't pokémon too?

"Does it matter?" Ali answers for me. "Famous pokémon celebrity or not, if you've seen the video then you'd have also seen that he made the choice to battle and get captured. Didn't most of the videos show him trying to smack himself with a poke ball in order to get captured?"

"True," says the boy. "I just wanted to know, though. It's not every day that you get a coach and see someone who's gone viral online."

"It doesn't matter," I say, following Ali's lead. "My pokémon here is obviously a poliwag that hasn't fully evolved yet - you can still see his tail where it hasn't fallen off yet. I'm teaching him how to read and write. You can join the dots if you want to, but if someone's going along making viruses from videos about him, that means someone doesn't want people to know who captured him, doesn't it?" I give my best creepy-grin, impersonating the creepy girls in white. "So if people don't want the video to be seen, what happens to the people that try to find out about the Duke?"

The boy's eyes go wide. It's almost comical and I feel just a little bit sorry for him as he throws himself down in his seat. A moment later he gets up and moves to the front of the coach, apparently too afraid to be anywhere near me or my pokémon.

"Holy foongus," Ali whispers, "never smile like that again when you're near me, alright? I'm pretty sure I had nightmares where the people trying to kill me looked like that."

At least you only see those smiles in your nightmares.

Instead of saying what I'm thinking, I just nod. "It worked though, didn't it?"

"Remind me never to get on your bad side." She dives into her bag and retrieves a party-sized pack of lollipops. I give it about an hour until she's eaten them all. "Lolly?" she asks, offering me one. "I think after that I need the sugar to deal - hey! No sugar for you!" She suddenly slaps Cap's hands, fearless in the face of her pokémon that's much taller and more muscly than her. "You don't deserve sugar, mister. Sam gets one," she says, opening the bag and tossing one to her gurdurr. She doesn't even pay attention when Sam eats the whole lolly, stick, wrapping and all.

And I thought Cassie was weird.

"I want to see one of your fists covered in flames, the other in frost," Ali says, pointing a lollipop at Cap. "And then I want you to knock this out of my hand without freezing or burning me, the coach or the lolly."

While she's distracted, I sneak two more out of the bag. Kiki seems to like the lemon ones - freak that she is - and I go for cherry for Duke, seeing as they're the best flavour there is. Kiki, accustomed to human food, manages to unwrap the sweet and pop it in her mouth. I have to unwrap Duke's and show him how to hold it in place before I trust him enough to take it.

And of course, he salivates cherry-smelling spit everywhere in less than a minute.

Ali, for her part, just laughs at me, not even noticing when Cap steals a stash of lollipops from her bag and tucks them into his karate robes. He winks at me when he sees me looking and quickly feigns innocence when Ali glances his way.

I sigh as I try to teach Duke to properly eat sweets. This is going to be a long trip.

**-O-O-O-**

Day two on the coach is somehow more boring than the first. The problem with sleeper coaches is spending the whole day sitting and sleeping in the same seat-bed-thing. Even the little rest stops we do so people can smoke – mostly the driver – and for us to get something to eat aren't enough for me to stretch my legs and feel like I've done something.

Ali groans from the window seat. I look over and see her lying down across the seats, her legs up against the window. If I had known that our trip was through nothing but tunnels, I would have paid for the Magnet Train to Goldenrod.

"This is like torture," Ali moans, stretching again. "I can't even run up and down through the aisle anymore because the driver gave me dirty looks, the road is too bumpy to do any sort of press ups or sit ups properly and all that I'm left with is trying to exercise myself mentally, which isn't anywhere near good enough."

I make the mistake of glancing in her direction. "I'm a fighter," she continues, about three seconds from angry rant mode, "so that means I need to be doing _something_. It's not that we get fatigued more… it's just that being laconic makes us irritable. Ever wondered why all the fighters you see are always running or kicking or trying to break blocks of concrete with their faces?"

"I thought they were just crazy," I say.

"There's that," Ali says, springing back into a sitting position. "At least you can let your pokémon out with you. My team are all fighters too. Cap gets testy if he doesn't get to train for a few hours a day. The rest aren't any better, but they're also less able to sit around in a coach than _he_ is."

"Do you not remember the mayhem Mandy caused?" I ask, pointing at the claw marks over several of the seats. As it turns out, leaving her out whilst we slept wasn't the best idea. Aside from sneaking half-eaten food into people's sleeping bags – to which I have no idea how she accomplished it, but I need her to teach me – she also somehow managed to tie a woman's braid to the seat behind her – without opposable thumbs or even hands to speak of – and to cap it all off, she somehow managed to release Rainbow Head's sceptile, which then spent nearly ten minutes trying to eviscerate her and almost everyone else on the coach.

The only reason I'm even still on the stupid coach is because the driver isn't stupid and said that people shouldn't be bringing fully grown pokémon on the coach, especially when they're capable of slicing us all to death. At least Mandy's pranks are mostly harmless.

That and I think the coach driver enjoyed getting to play hero when he untied the woman's braid from her seat.

At least Cassie just turned the spare toilet into a giant ice cube.

"I can only really keep Kiki or Duke out with us," I say, sighing. "Kiki just tries to stab everyone with her eyes whenever they even breathe near me, whilst Duke just wants to learn about _everything_. He _cannot_ find toilets so interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if _Cassie_ spent an hour watching the water flush out of a toilet, but Duke?"

Ali shrugs. "I guess he was just trying to figure out how it works."

"That's what scares me." I grab his poké ball from the pocket of my purrloin hoodie and toss it between my hands. "After everything Lamya said about the psychic overflow from Cerulean Cave, and that Duke's from there, what if he's planning to like, murder us all and get rid of the evidence?"

Ali laughs, loud enough to wake the few people left on the coach. Given the glares they give us, I don't think we're ever going to be their friends. Good. I can't say I ever wanted a man with ears he could use to fly or a woman who looks like the Wicked Witch as my friends. And that's not even counting the ginger kid my age that I'm still not sure is a boy, but he certainly _smells_ like one.

"I don't think you have to worry about your pokémon trying to kill you," Ali says, patting me on the head. "He would have shown some tendencies towards that by now. I think he just genuinely wants to learn."

I hold out his poké ball. "Then you teach him? You do all the psychology stuff and you said you wanted a poliwrath, right?"

She laughs, pushing my hand gently back to me. "Nice try, but no. You managed with Kiki, even if you've said that was mostly your dad. Yeah a poliwrath would be nice, but you also managed to get Mandy under control and Cassie… well, she's sort of normal now, isn't she?"

"She doesn't seem to be leaping from tall buildings anymore," I mutter. At Ali's confused look, I quickly clear my throat. "I mean, alright, I'll stick with Duke. I'm just _tired_. Like, in my body and in my brain. It's just so _boring_ in this coach. I mean, I can't even try to study or anything, because there's _nothing_ else to do. I like to have distractions around me, because that makes it easier for me to concentrate." I fold my arms. "I _know_ that sounds weird but it's true."

"It's fine," Ali says, hugging me with one arm. Everyone always says that girls hug gently, but with Ali it reminds me of all the times Jerry went to hug me and then started rubbing my head with his knuckles. Even though I know she's not going to do it, I still can't help but prepare to escape a sudden headlock.

"You're just getting cabin fever," she says. "Once we're off this coach and you've gotten used to the outside world again, you'll feel fine. Then give it a few weeks and you'll probably be waiting for a time in which you can sit around and do nothing for a couple of days." She groans as she stretches again, falls on the floor and just sits there, staring at the floor between her legs. "As for me, I'll probably break the nose of the next person that suggests I spend three days trapped on a coach."

I shuffle away from her a little. "It was your idea to come with me," I point out.

"Then I'll break my own nose," she says, as if that solves everything.

**-O-O-O-**

When we finally get off the coach, the first thing that I notice is the sweet, fresh smell of the crisp autumn air. The leaves in the trees are turning orange and fluttering in the breeze, even as little tiny baby pidgey chirp and squeak from their nests as their mother pidgeotto vomits up half-eaten caterpie for them.

"Nature is so beautiful isn't it?" Ali asks, seeing what I see. "In fact, I remember my own mother feeding me that way too," she sighs, clasping her hands in front of her heart.

"I thought-" I start to say and then realise just what she means. I make a face. "Gross."

"But it's so beautiful," she sings, like she's got her own crazy television show about ugly pokémon and how pretty they actually are. "Come here," she declares, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me towards her, "and let me feed you."

"Ew!" I scream as her fingers go for the back of her throat. Joke or not, that's just gross. She cackles - I think she's been taking lessons from Mandy - and wipes a tear from her eye. "You're not funny," I tell her.

"I so am," she says, still laughing. "You should have seen your face. I wish I'd taken a picture of it."

"Whatever," I growl, feeling the tips of my ears burning. "Let's just go meet Jerry." I spin around and see the countless fields full of flowers and trees, the river that sneaks out of Tohjo Falls and down to New Bark and nothing that even hints towards a sign of civilisation. "Um," I mumble, spinning again, "he does know this coach drops us off here, right?"

"And you do realise why this coach was so cheap, right?" Ali throws an arm around my shoulders and squeezes me again. I get the mental image of me popping and oozing out like a burst toothpaste tube. "There's a little town near the coach station, but they've only got about maybe fifty people that live there. This coach comes here for Trainers who don't want to walk all that way across Kanto to get here. The fact that there's even a road here is something - all the land here is protecting by the Kanto League."

"Okay," I say, trying to find this mystery town she mentioned and yet failing, "that doesn't help me try and find Jerry."

She flicks out her phone with a shake of her head. "There's this magical invention right here. Calling a number lets you talk to a person on the over side!" She even does spooky-fingers and makes 'ooh' noises as she does so.

I just poke my tongue out at her as she dials Jerry. That was far easier than I thought it would be. I thought she'd at least tell me to ring him - I mean, he is my brother. And the fact that she actually types in a number, rather than selecting it from contacts. Does she have his number memorised? I try not to smirk.

Not even a moment after she says hello, Jerry appears in the clearing in front of us. I can't help but shriek as he appears – and it's only Annie's quick interventions that stop Ali from breaking Jerry's nose in fright.

"Idiot," she growls, punching his arm. I see the way he winces when he's sure she isn't looking.

"What she said," I say, but I hug him instead. "I got all my Kanto badges!"

"And you also caught The Duke," he says, sounding like he's lecturing me, but there's a smile on his face. "You just can't keep to doing the normal trainer things and capturing pokémon in the wild, can you?"

"I so can," I huff, "I even caught a scyther in Viridian Forest!"

"Really?" The way his eyebrow raises tells me how little he believes that. "So where is this mystery creature? If you had one of those, you'd be unleashing it in public and using it to try and get your own way with everything."

I see Ali snort a laugh and glare her way. Traitor. "I so _did_," I say, fishing out my pokédex for proof. I find the little capture log part that lists all the pokémon captured and recorded to my pokédex. It's disappointingly sparse. Cassie, the scyther and Duke. Mandy isn't even there because she was a gift.

"See?" I say, shoving the pokédex at him. "I so caught one!" If I were a pokémon, I could live off the shock on his face for a few months. "I sold it though," I say, before he asks. I press a few buttons on my pokédex and bring up the pokémon hunting website Pascal signed me up for. "See? That was what I sold."

"Huh," Jerry says. At least it's not just me that's reduced to grunts when I'm shocked or surprised. "You do know you're my favourite sister, right?" he asks suddenly, throwing his arm over my shoulders.

Ali takes the pokédex from him and mutters a few curses I still hear. "Screw you, Curly. She's _my _friend – I saw her first!"

"How does that even work?"

"Because I said so." She shoves him aside and hands me back my pokédex. "Just remember that unlike your brother, I won't use your feelings to exploit you for money." She smiles. "I will, however, teach you how to kick six foot high and do the splits."

"Ow," I say, wincing to that thought. "Maybe just teaching me how to kick above my head will be fine. Or flying kicks!" I pull Duke's poké ball out of my pocket. "I guess I should try and train Duke in some fighting things too. He's the only one of my pokémon that has arms and can move around enough to throw things around like a fighter."

"Do that enough and he'll be a poliwrath." Annie, apparently bored of us ignoring her, hovers around Jerry's head, seems to grow bored and descends into the shadows of the trees. The alarmed squawks of pokémon let me know that she's out terrorising the wildlife. Jerry doesn't seem concerned. "If you focus more on elemental attacks, he'll evolve into a politoed instead."

At the end of the clearing, I see a stantler and what has to be its baby springing along after it. The huge shadow of a fearow looms over them as it soars down from the top of Tohjo falls.

"I'll let whatever happens happen," I decide. If wild pokémon can evolve how they like, why should mine be any different?"

"Well until that does," Ali says, grabbing both our arms, "there are more important things to worry about. Like the fact that _someone_ is going to be going into Johto and aiming for her fourth badge soon!"

"Seventh," I say, suddenly self-conscious. Didn't it take Jerry nearly a year to get this far? I've done it in only a couple of months. "It's the fourth one I need for my school, but then I've gotten a badge from Pewter, one from Ramos and I just got one from Cerulean too. So that means that the battles will be harder, right?" I sigh. "That means my tests will probably be even harder too."

And Falkner's the next one. As much as I've tried to look online for clues, I haven't seen anything. As long as he doesn't decide on something crazy like a sky-race on a pokémon that doesn't know how to fly or strapping me to a pidgeot and having it fly full-speed around Johto, I might be alright.

"Seventh!" Ali corrects herself, still dragging us across the clearing. I can hear the sound of a stream, though that honestly doesn't mean much to me. I have no idea where we are really – I guess that to get to Johto, I just go in the opposite direction to them. "Did you manage to bring it?" she asks, looking at Jerry.

"I placed the order," he says, sounding a lot like Dad when Mum sent him out for continual trips to buy pickles. She's clearly to blame for my strange habits. "I just need to go back with Ali and collect it."

"Well do so!" she shouts, shoving him. "Get going! We'll get things ready here!"

"Fine," he sighs. A whistle and Annie appears in his shadow, cackling. The sound continues even after Jerry vanishes into black. The space where he stood slowly begins to light up again, as if Annie sucked all the light and joy out of the air when she teleported.

"Just what's happening?" I ask.

"We're celebrating," Ali says, throwing her pack to the floor and digging through it. "Now help me set up camp. If you're wandering into Johto and we're heading back into Kanto, we can at least spend one night together, right?"

I don't really even get a chance to answer, because she's already setting up the tents. I wouldn't have put it past her to have convinced Jerry to somehow bring a projector and a DVD player out here.

I let out my pokémon and prepare for the inevitable chaos. Duke seems to notice the stream nearby and ambles towards it, Cassie cackling as she chases after him. Mandy sees Ali trying to set up the tents and of course decides to grab the ropes and untie them after Ali's put them up. Ali just laughs and lets out Cap. The sawk manages to distract Mandy – mostly by using her as target practice.

Kiki meanwhile just stands near me, looming like a silent spectre as I dig a fire pit.

I'm actually surprised she doesn't seem to react when Annie and Jerry reappear. She must be able to sense intent by the teleportation or something – that or Annie telepathically messages her first so Kiki doesn't freak and fill Jerry full of needles. I don't exactly want to go back to my parents with my brother turned into Swiss cheese by my pokémon.

That or the fact that Jerry's holding several boxes of pizza is enough to stop her.

"The hunter-gatherer has returned!" Jerry declares, holding the food to the sky like a trophy.

"Don't kid yourself." Ali marches up to him and snatches the pizza. He seems to understand the cardinal rule of Ali – never get between her and junk food. "_I'm_ the most likely to be a hunter-gatherer here. You'd be at home sewing my ripped up clothes and cooking dinner."

"And just how many times have you dreamt of coming home to me?" He laughs as she starts to turn red. "If you're going to make me a housewife, I want you to buy me all the shoes and clothes I want."

The fact he didn't expect her to pick him up is a clear oversight. "Well then, _wifey_," Ali shouts, carrying him in a fireman's lift, "I'll make sure to spoil you all the time. But I think you need to wash before you're pretty enough for me to spoil."

He shrieks as she throws him into the stream. Duke, splashed with the full force of water, croaks and spits water back at them. Soaked and laughing, Ali doesn't notice when Cassie runs up behind her and pushes her into the water.

I pick up a slice of pizza and watch the show. "You guys remember that I'm still here, right?"

They look like they've been caught doing something they shouldn't. Oblivious to the change, Cassie makes a few small snowballs and throws them at Duke. His cheeks inflate and Cassie is thrown into the water by a stream of exploding bubbles.

It's enough to make Ali and Jerry start laughing again. They lean on each other as they climb out of the stream, dripping water all over our camp. Ali, predictably, goes straight for the boxes of pizza whilst Jerry shoos Annie away as he tries to find dry clothes to change into.

"So…" I say, grinning at them both. "Am I invited to the wedding?"

I don't know why I didn't think they'd throw me in the stream for that.

**-O-O-O-**

"What're you doing out here at this time?"

I look up from my book and see my brother stood over the crackling fire, orange flames bathing him in enough light to make it seem like he's caught fire too. Duke slimes away from my side to sit between us. I don't know whether he's offering Jerry a space or protecting me from him, but I'd appreciate the gesture a lot more if he hadn't taken my book with him.

I shrug. "Reading," I say, as if it's obvious.

"But at night? That's going to hurt your eyes."

"I'm teaching Duke," I say, trying not to sigh. Today was fun, even if it went way too quickly. I don't want to tarnish it by getting another lecture off my brother. More than that, I don't want to let him upset me because I'm worried that if Diz finds out, he'll wipe Jerry's brain again and I'll be left with a vegetable for a brother and my parents will so not accept 'Diz was trying to protect me' as an explanation.

"Then that's going to hurt his eyes." I see the way that Jerry gives Duke a wide berth as he walks around him. The fact that Duke doesn't attack means that he must have moved to let Jerry sit next to me. Or he just wanted to protect the book. I don't really know Duke well enough to say.

"I do a lot of training at night," I say, as if that makes everything better. "Mostly it's just the same thing as during the day - having Kiki hit moving targets, getting Cassie to freeze stuff faster and having her freeze hotter stuff." I point up. "You didn't even notice Mandy circling us, did you?"

With the speed his head shoots up to look, the answer is obvious. "You're training her to circle silently?"

"No, silly. I'm training her to be silent. In case you haven't noticed, vullaby aren't the most offensive pokémon around. I need her to be able to try and surprise everything she attacks."

The way he looks at me makes me wonder if he's ever seen me as intelligent at all. "That's actually smart."

"Yeah, well, I don't exactly have massively powered pokémon," I say. One day, when I can have a tyranitar or an onix or something, I can just sit around and have the battle plan of 'squish your enemies by sitting on them'. Until then I actually have to think of ways to try and win battles. "She's also generating some darkness," I say without looking up. "Lamya - the gym leader in Eclipse - has her pokémon make some sort of darkness that makes it so that you can't hear or see or anything whilst you're inside it."

"She makes it so you can't see in the darkness."

"Shut up," I growl, turning red. "My point is that I want Mandy to be able to do that. So mostly she's working on being silent without the darkness first, so that when she's making it, everything gets confused. That's why I'm teaching Duke to read at night and training my pokémon when it's dark too - that way, they're sort of used to it, so if anyone tries it on us again, we're not totally useless."

Finally Jerry sits down by my side. He ruffles my hair in that annoying way, even when I try to shove him away. Grinning, he stops and just hugs me with one arm. "You're really thinking about this, aren't you?" he says, still looking up and watching Mandy.

"Uh-huh." I nod against his shoulder. Since when did he get comfy? He was always skinny and bony. "I have to get these badges so I can get into my school. All the tests so far have made me have to think about things. Blaine's was the hardest, so that made Lamya's kinda easy afterwards, but I still need to try and keep up. The badges I get from them count as actual badges, so once I have all eight, people will be allowed to use stronger pokémon against me. So if I've only gotten the badges I need without really training, I'm not really much better off, am I?"

"Who are you and what have you done with my sister?" He laughs as I punch him. "I can remember a time where you thought about nothing but studying history. Now you're planning out your pokémon training as if that's the only thing you want to do."

"It's not," I say, sighing. "I'm trying to balance everything but I keep forgetting things here and there. It's hard to focus on everything. I want to sit down and just study, but then my pokémon need my attention. And when I start to train my pokémon, I want to scurry away and read. How do people manage to go to school and still be trainers?"

He shrugs. "You find a way. You're just… unfocused."

"It's hard not to be. I don't have Diz streaking after me, but…" I trail away, fully aware of what happened last time I said anything to Jerry. I don't want to jinx anything by mentioning his name and suddenly having him appear. "Basically he said there's nothing I can do," I say, lamely, hoping it's enough.

Apparently it's not. "What does that even mean?"

"The legends," I sigh. "I… I don't wanna say much, because the last time I told someone, basically their mind got wiped to stop bad things from reading their thoughts."

The way he sighs my name puts across all the pity, tiredness and worry that I'm sure my parents feel too. "Wiping minds isn't something that's seen as a good thing," he lectures. "Are you sure… are you sure that Diz can be trusted, if he's with people - or pokémon - that can do that?"

"No," I say, honestly. "But they're the only ones giving me answers so far."

"And there's no one else that you can ask?"

I remember Beel and his continual lectures. The hypno and clefable all seemed to be on one side there. That only leaves the bisharp and gothitelle… which of course makes me remember the way that gothitelle ate the hypno's head and started wearing it under its skin or something. Do. Not. Want.

"I'm not sure," I say.

"Well whose mind did they wipe then?"

"I can't say," I tell him. Before he goes too protective older brother I add, "The thing with the legends is meant to happen, Jerry. It's…" I sigh again, trying to remember what they told me. "I'm not allowed to take sides. I have to watch the legends fall… and then I have to stop whatever's killing them."

"Who told you this?"

"I can't tell you."

He sighs. Not out of anger or boredom, but out of an obvious frustration that he can't do anything. I think I can understand how he feels. If something like this was happening to him, I would want to help him even if he wanted to keep me safe.

"Okay, can you at least tell me how you know all this?"

"I was told it."

He lets go of my shoulder and spins around so he can face me. "And you haven't thought about asking someone else? Checking something?"

"No."

"Then you're an idiot."

I flinch and stare at the floor.

"Because seriously," he goes on, like I'm not already upset enough, "what's happened to you? I can remember the times where if you'd been told something like that, the first thing you'd do would be to go out and check books to see if they're lying or not. Now you're taking it for gospel?"

"Well I'm busy!" I hiss, even though it's a useless argument. I see the way Duke tenses at my anger and force myself to calm down a little. As much as I'd appreciate it now, I don't think that having my pokémon throw Jerry over Tohjo Falls would be a good thing in the long term. "I can't just sit down and read all the time when I've got pokémon to train and badges to get and people that want to find me because I saw legends die chasing after me!"

Before I can say anything else, he hugs me. My face is pressed against his chest and he holds it there so that either I can't talk or because he thinks I'm going to cry.

"I'm sorry," he says, "maybe I shouldn't have said it like that. But listen, you can't do everything at once. You need to make time for things, otherwise you're only letting yourself down. You could have done something on the coach ride here, right?"

"I was bored though," I mumble into his chest.

"That doesn't change anything. You think I don't get bored of the things I have to do? I _hate_ accounting and everything like that, but aside from pokémon training, it's the only thing I'm good at. So I force myself to carry on."

"Yeah, but-"

"No buts."

"-Okay," I sigh. "I'll try and do something. Though it pains me to say it, I admit, "You're right. I should have tried to see if they were telling me the truth. I guess I can now, seeing as I haven't seen Diz for a while."

"Yeah, what happened there?" He pushes me away and bends down so he can look me in the eyes. "Annie had some trouble trying to find you earlier. When pokémon teleport, they can lock onto a personality to make it easier - but yours has been… well, _scrambled_, is how she described it."

"I dunno," I say. "There's a lot of things happening around me that I don't understand. Apparently that video of me catching Duke got all virused or something, so people have had to pull it from all the video sites."

He looks so confused that I know instantly it can't be him - and that he doesn't know any more about it than Ali or I do. "How… just _how_ did that happen?"

"I don't know. I guess someone is trying to look after me, or something?"

"Maybe," he says, though he doesn't sound too sure. "Just, be careful, alright? If you want, I can come round Johto with you."

I catch myself about to take the offer. As much as it'd be nice to have Jerry around, I kinda do need to do things on my own. But it's not just that - whenever Diz comes along next, if Jerry's with me then Diz might decide to wipe his mind again.

"I should probably do it on my own," I say. "But I can always ring you if anything goes wrong, right?"

"Sure." It's impossible to read how he feels. "Okay." He hugs me and when I hug him back, I almost don't want to let go. It's so easy to pretend that since my big brother is here, nothing bad is going to happen. When Snowpoint happened and the steelix and even the gastly in Eterna, he was always there to try and make sure that nothing bad happened to me.

I can still remember Saffron and what he did to the ultra-creepy dude that followed me around the store. He's my brother, so he'll go to any lengths necessary to protect me.

It's the reason why I wait until after he's gone to sleep and sneak away into the night. If he doesn't know I've gone, he won't follow me. If he doesn't follow me, Diz won't come after him and wipe his mind. Mystery people won't wipe videos off the internet involving him or somehow scramble his brain to make it hard for psychics to find him.

"Come on," I say to Duke, refusing to look back at the little campsite that holds my brother and my best friend. They'll hate me for just leaving them a note, but it's not like I'm breaking my phone. They'll still have a way to contact me – I just think it's safer that they can't find me.

And if I happen to cry a little at the thought of leaving them, at least they're not there to see my weakness.


	29. Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

_Diary,_

_I failed the test of character. Should I feel lucky that I did not lose myself to despair, as the rumours say others have? I was told that I am too callous, too unforgiving. Despite everything I have done, they told me that my heart was still black. I have studied, I have learnt, I have __bled_ _for this, but it was still not enough._

_The told me I see to see things clearly, not just using my eyes. I am uncertain what they mean by this, Diary._

_Tomorrow, I will travel and learn the world. You will come with me._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Tell Me Sweet Little Lies|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

New Bark is so thoroughly unremarkably that I'm sure if Diz decided to appear and streak naked down the streets, people would probably have heart attacks and die from the sheer scandal alone.

The parade of shops that they call a high street reminds me of some film I was forced to watch in school where everyone died of boredom. Seriously, I know that Professor Elm has his research thing here, but I'm pretty sure this place is where old people come to die. All I can see are charity shops full of old lady clothes, a couple of old-fashioned green grocers and butchers and a _million_ bingo halls.

I'm actually surprised they don't fill the streets with funeral shops and mobility scooters. I get the feeling they'd sell a lot more here than they would in the rest of Johto combined.

I grab my phone and send Jerry and Ali the same text, moaning about how boring New Bark is. It's easier to text them and avoid their calls – surprisingly, they weren't too happy about me up and leaving them during the night. I mean, I even texted them both and said that I got a little lost trying to track down and capture a wild totodile – which I think is a pretty believable explanation, but all it brought me was a thousand missed calls from them both come the morning.

And given that it's only barely past dawn and they've sent me about a hundred texts between them, I get the feeling that today might be a very long day.

I mean, it's not like I've never travelled around anywhere by myself! Though I can't really turn around and tell them that I'm doing it all to protect them from Diz. That would just naturally end up with a load more questions being thrown at me and then somehow, Diz would find out and it would be the total opposite of what I intended.

I sigh and choose a random bus shelter to sit in. Thankfully, it doesn't smell like pee.

What I need is an alibi. I need someone to turn around and let Jerry know that no, I'm not currently being kidnapped by hungry misdreavous who are intent on eating my soul and teaching me how to boil frogs and give people the plague.

I glance up at the bus timetable and see that I've got ten minutes until the bus to Cherrygrove arrives. By the looks of it, the trip takes about an hour. That said, it'll give me a pretty awesome alibi and all the cookies I can eat.

I'm gonna go visit Grandma.

**-O-O-O-**

Whereas New Bark felt like God's waiting room, Cherrygrove at least seems to have some life left in it. Mostly it's full of farms growing loads of cherry trees which I guess explains the name of the town, really.

It takes me a little while to find the street that Grandma lives on. I can't remember the last time I came to visit her, but the street is vaguely familiar-ish. Mostly I remember it by the old man a few doors down with the really old wartortle that just didn't seem to want to evolve. I swear, it could have been given a walking stick and an anorak and it would have been impossible to tell the difference between it and all the old people in New Bark.

I finally stop at what I'm pretty sure is Grandma's house. It's a three storey, grey-bricked terraced house with – predictably – a cherry tree growing in the front garden. I can see pictures hanging up on the windowsill in the living room and if I crane my neck back far enough, I'm fairly certain I can see thick, brown vines snaking out of the attic room window. They have to belong to her victreebel.

Remembering that creature just makes me shudder. I'm pretty sure the last time I stayed here, Grandma threatened to have the thing _eat_ Jerry and me if we misbehaved. I'm certain it _salivated_ when she said that too.

I wonder if maybe I should have rung to let her know I was coming. I shrug to myself and decide that if I've got the wrong house, I'll ring her and find out if she still even lives in Cherrygrove. For all I know she could have moved to the moon.

The doorbell chimes with one of those really long songs that just loops and _loops_ again and again. I'm pretty sure dogs in the distance howl.

Someone's definitely in, because I can see the lights switch on in the second floor hallway.

At the same time, the front door opens.

"Hi!" I say, grinning. Only, nothing greets me except an empty hallway.

Then I look down and see a single, _fat_ hairless meowth.

"Oh crap," I say, panicking. Please don't tell me I've turned up at Aunt Sally's house! Does she even live in Johto? I've never even been to her house! What if she makes me eat cat treats and has those fat meowth shed all their skin over me?

Oh man, I do _not_ want to sit through her holiday pictures and see those fat little furless things on the beach being cooked. Nor do I want to see Aunt Sally in a bikini. I swear, if she ever shows _any_ boy those pictures, he's going to decide then and there that he doesn't like women.

The fat meowth sits there in the hallway, staring up at me with wide eyes. It looks like it wants to stretch, but I'm pretty sure it'll just end up getting stuck and having to roll its way down the hallway.

"Hello?" I say into the house. The meowth keeps staring, like I've got a rattata on my shoulder or something. "I'm not food!" I hiss at it.

The _thing_ – because any pokémon that gets _that_ fat and looks that unnatural can only ever be called a thing – hisses back at me and then turns, strutting away into the house, tail wagging.

Thankfully at the same time I hear the stairs creaking with what has to be human weight coming down them. I peer in the door and see Grandma coming down the stairs, her hair tied up in a bun and a mutant on her face.

That or a face mask. But it's so green it could probably be caught in a poké ball and battle in the championships.

When Grandma sees me, her whole face lights up. She actually _squeals_ and leaps down the remaining stairs to rush at me and pick me up. She practically shouts my name at me – which is strange enough, because she's the only one that ever calls me by my whole name – and kisses my cheeks, leaving traces of face-mask slime behind.

For the first time, I see just how much my mum looks like her. The same sort of hair – though Grandma's is still a dull blonde, rather than Mum's jet black – and almost the same nose. In fact, Jerry looks a lot like her too, now that I can see it.

"Come in, come in!" Grandma says, shutting the door behind me. "It's so wonderful to see you here! Ignore the meowth – those fat, useless creatures are only here whilst your Aunt Sally swans off on her honeymoon."

"Honeymoon?" I ask. Didn't she get married like over a year ago?

Grandma rolls her eyes and grunts. "Husband number five," she says, her opinion obvious in her tone. "The third decided to leave her for his secretary. The fourth… well I imagine he saw her in the bedroom and decided that women weren't his cup of tea anymore."

I can't help but snort a laugh.

"Ah, don't mind me," Grandma sighs, leading me into the kitchen. "She's my daughter, so I'm allowed to say it."

The kitchen has been redecorated again – dark red, with black-topped counters and a _massive_ fridge that I'm sure could hide a person in. The cookie jar is full with more treats – not freshly baked, but sugar's sugar – and the massive mirror that hangs up above the sink is smeared with make-up marks and post it notes about shopping.

One of the fat meowth sits on the window ledge, its tail wrapped around a mini cactus. Whatever it's staring at in the garden must be interesting, because it doesn't even look around when we walk in.

"Tea?" Grandma offers. "Hot chocolate?" She looks me up and down. "You're not old enough for coffee yet. Tried it with your mother at your age – it took her a whole day to come down from the rush. This was _after_ she bounced through a bed and managed to fall into the curtains and bring them down with her too."

I laugh at the thought of Mum bouncing up and down on any bed and getting caught in the curtains. "Chocolate," I say. "And can I charge my phone? I need to text Jerry and let him know I'm here, but my phone's ran out of battery."

"Of course," Grandma says, flipping on the kettle – something that I'm sure is a large as a small child. Either she has a lot of guests or her victreebel drinks a lot of tea. "And don't you worry about Jeremy. I'll let him know you're here."

I grin to myself as she walks out of the room, muttering about phones and how they're ridiculously small these days. Alibi sorted.

The papers laid out on the kitchen table are pretty depressing – missing trainers, mostly about my age, all apparently having disappeared in the last few weeks. One of the fat meowth squeezes its way through a cat flap that's way too small for it – somehow it still manages to fit. I see that it's got something like a needle mark in the middle of its back and grin to myself. Hopefully they're getting beaten up by other pokémon – they really look like they need some form of exercise.

And a wig. Maybe I should introduce Diz to them.

"That's all done," Grandma says as she walks back into the room. She literally _tosses_ her phone at the table and returns her attention to the kettle. If she treats them like that, I'm not surprised she can ever find them. "So what brings you here then?"

"I just got to Johto yesterday," I tell her, shrugging. I'm not sure how much my parents have told her, so maybe it's not a good idea to let her know everything. "I'm trying to get a scholarship into a school in Anville in Unova – people like Cynthia teach there. So do people like Blaine and Falkner – I need to get badges from them to prove that I'm good enough to get in."

"Well that _does_ seem interesting!" Grandma says. She fills my chocolate up, adds a load of big, chunky marshmallows to it and hands me a mug that I'm pretty sure is as large as my head. I see her add what has to be half a bag of sugar to hers and understand where I get my sweet tooth from. "Is it going well then?"

I've got three of the badges I need so far," I say. "And a few others that I've collected along the way. The ones I need don't test how strong my pokémon are, so I have to do normal gyms as well to keep up with everyone else."

"Smart," she says. "How are things with Jeremy? And your parents – I haven't heard from Carol in a little while."

I try my best not to let any discomfort show. "Urm, Jerry's alright. He's gonna go back through Kanto now and try and get badges there. His team's pretty strong now. He's actually travelling with a friend of mine anyway – her name's Ali."

"A _girl_?" Grandma's face lights up again. "Oh, well that is interesting. A friend of yours, you say?"

"Uh-huh. She's Jerry's age though. Maybe a little younger."

Grandma's smile practically reaches her ears. "Ah, young love," she sighs. "Why, I remember my own trainer journey – that's where I met your grandfather, you know?"

"Didn't he beat you in a League match or something?" I ask, popping a marshmallow into my mouth.

"He did. And then I told him that the only gentlemanly thing to do afterwards was to buy me dinner." She laughs, just a little. "Ah, Dennis. The little time we had together was enjoyable and brought me one of the best treasures in my life." She uses one of the sleeves of her bright purple dressing gown to dab at her eyes, somehow avoiding all the sludge over her face. "Anyway," she says, cheering considerably, "how is your mother? And Joe – I assume they're both doing well?"

"Yeah," I say, not really willing to say much more.

"They've moved now, haven't they? Seemed a bit sudden to me."

"I guess so. I think they wanted to though, since I started travelling too. I don't think Dad wanted to pay for an empty house or something."

"That man," she says, shaking her head. "And how's your mother? Does she know about Jeremy and this Ali?"

"She's okay. And yeah, they both know about Ali – I met her first, actually. She was travelling with her nephew but he ran away, so I helped her look for him and then when we found out he went back home, she started travelling with me." I glance at the cookies, but it's not enough for Grandma to notice and offer me any.

"Kiki's gotten stronger too," I say. "And I've got three others too."

"Four pokémon? And you've only been travelling what – seven, eight months?"

I frown as I try to think about it. "Something like that." Honestly, I'm not even sure how long it's been.

"Well then, let them out!"

I hesitate and look around her kitchen – her obviously newly remodelled kitchen. "Urm, maybe I should do it outside, or something? I don't want to damage anything in here."

Grandma smiles at me. "Smart, as always. Your brother didn't think about that when I asked him – that's the main reason why I have this new kitchen." She laughs. "Shame on me for not thinking it myself – you'd think I'd have learnt by now."

I just nod and follow her as she opens the back door into the garden. I can see the big bay doors that lead into the dining room and make the decision to let my pokémon out as far away from that as possible.

The garden is pretty overgrown, with an ancient swingset still at the end. Grandma just laughs and tells me that her victreebel – Dave, his name is – prefers it that way, because it makes it easier to hunt. That and if Mum's anything like her, that means she probably kills every plant she touches.

I also find out that apparently Dave has set up his nest in the guest bathroom. If I need to pee, I'm going outside.

I release all of my pokémon at once, which in retrospect, could have been a _very_ bad idea.

"This is my grandma," I tell them, though Kiki already knows. "Be nice. And – Cassie!" I shriek, having to chase her through the garden. "No, don't try and freeze the fat meowth!"

Grandma just finds it hilarious. I look over my shoulder to see that Mandy has perched on her shoulder and has her face pressed up against the facepack Grandma's wearing. Duke sits in front of them both, croaking occasionally, as if he's asking them a question. Meanwhile Kiki's followed me slightly into the maze of a garden, looking like she's about to slay the grass for whatever reason.

"She still follows you like that?" Grandma shakes her head. "I hadn't thought it would have lasted this long."

I forget about Cassie as I look between Kiki and Grandma. "You've known about Kiki before?" I struggle to think back. "Didn't I come round here last before I got her?"

"Yes, but I helped your father get her," she says. "I knew the breeder who had released a few maractus into the wild – Kiki was the final one that was meant to be released. Her father was a cacturne, you know? You can see it, in the way she's developing."

That and the fact that she also acts like Mandy and other dark pokémon I've seen. Though I can see what Grandma means – I can see where Kiki's legs are starting to grow and where's she's getting taller. She even looks like she's forming a pattern of spikes on her chest, like the buttons cacturne seem to have.

"Do all pokémon end up looking like a mix of their parents?"

"I wouldn't know," Grandma says. "I'm not a breeder. My time for training pokémon has passed. My team have gone now and I'm left with Dave. The age of fifty-three isn't exactly the best time to start chasing after young pokémon and attempting to train them."

"I guess not," I say, trying to picture it myself. Somehow, no matter how hard I try I can't picture myself old and chasing after pokémon. In fact, I can't picture myself old at all. I'll find some sort of miracle cream that keeps me young forever or something. Problem solved.

I see the way Grandma's staring off into the distance, as if she's trying to see over the fences in her garden. Tough to do that – even if I stood at the top of the sloping hill, I'm pretty sure I'd only see about halfway up the fences. She smiles when Mandy squawks and flaps her wings, demanding more attention.

"Don't worry about your snorunt," she says, "the fences are designed to stop pokémon being able to escape or even sneak in. Besides – it's easy to find her. Just follow the maze of ice that's appearing."

I look at the grass and see that it is indeed freezing over wherever Cassie runs through. "Oops," I say, flinching. "Sorry!"

"Don't worry about it, dear. If she manages to freeze over enough of the garden, we might even get to watch these fat meowth slip and slide across the ice! Now," she says, clapping her hands and startling Mandy. Duke copies her, though Grandma doesn't say anything to that. "You're staying for dinner," she tells me. "You and your pokémon. You're also staying the night before you head off to wherever it is you're going next."

"Okay," I say. It's not like I've got any real plans anyway – just head up to Violet City and try and get another badge off Falkner. Then round to Ecruteak, get a badge there, head to Olivine and then onward to Hoenn.

Grandma wraps an arm around me and squeezes me tight against her. I make the mental note to tell Jerry to come and visit her when he can. She seems kinda lonely – I guess that Dave isn't that great company. Unless of course he traps the mail man and snares him against the basement wall – I distinctly remember overhearing Grandma's plans for something like that when I was younger.

My family: inducing mental trauma from as early as possible.

"Can I help?" I ask, practically skipping into the kitchen. "I'll try and keep my pokémon out of the way. They just seem to prefer food that I've made."

Total lies – they eat pretty much anything. Never mind Mandy and her habits of eating rotting meat – there's also Cassie and her love for anything that she can get her hands on and I'm still not sure what Duke is _meant_ to eat, but he tries pretty much everything – even if it just ends up giving him a runny bum for the next few days.

"That'd be wonderful. First of all, you can help me feed Dave – I've had some miltank meat out in the pantry for a few days, he'll love that."

I wish I'd never offered. The things I do, just to get some cookies.

I don't miss, however, the way Grandma watches me out of the corner of her eye when she thinks I'm not looking. She glances out into the garden again, as if there's someone out there that she expects to see. When I walk back into the kitchen, I see that the papers full of missing children reports are missing, replaced with pamphlets for baking cakes and making stews.

I also don't miss the envelope atop the pile of post, with the address written in Mum's handwriting. Here I thought that keeping my family in the dark to protect them was something only I did.

I can't help but wonder if Aunt Sally is on another honeymoon. It's obvious though that Grandma's not going to tell me anything. Maybe somehow Grandma is behind all the videos of Duke disappearing on the internet? I'm pretty sure she's retired, so she has to find something to do all day to stop herself getting bored.

All in all, it's just another thing to add to the list. Discover what's really happening with Diz and the legends, get the badges to get into my school, avoid random creepy government people that Diz happened to kill when they got too close and find out just what it is that my family are hiding from me.

Put like that, it sounds so easy.

The most important things first, I decide. Cookies.


	30. The Voices of Those Who Stand Looking

_Diary,_

_The floral lagoon city. I will admit that parts of it are beautiful. The way the rivers are lined with blooming flowers, the way that their strategic placing means that they catch the light just so, letting them sparkle in the sunlight and breathe fresh life into the city._

_Parts of it, however, are filled with fetid, inhumane waste. The riverbanks overflow, seeping into the rotting wooden shacks. The mudbanks, with a ratio of mud to excrement wholly in favour of the latter. Starving pokemon and people, all scrapping over discarded pieces of mildewed food._

_Is this what they wanted me to see? Did they want to open my eyes to the world, or merely reaffirm my opinions?_

_I have no choice but to continue travelling, Diary. Silent though you are, perhaps you may help me achieve some clarity here._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|I Have Seen the Voices of Those Who Stand Looking|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

It turns out that nothing wakes you up in the morning quite like a heavy, hungry victreebel salivating over you.

I must have screamed louder than I thought because the next thing I know, Grandma actually _kicks_ down the door to her guest room and leaps in, screaming, brandishing a _sword_ of all things.

"Oh," she says, blinking. "It's just Dave." She pats the victreebel on what I think might be the head and just smiles at me. "He just wanted to say good morning."

If I breathe any faster I might actually break the world record. The victreebel continues to sit on my bed, salivating over the covers. Grandma just pats its leaves, the sword in her hand apparently forgotten.

Where the hell did she even _get_ a sword? _Why_ does she have one? I groan and fall back against the pillow. It's _way_ too early in the morning to be dealing with this. It's not like I can say anything anyway – I get the feeling that the victreebel is Grandma's favourite thing in the whole world. I can't help but wonder if it was named before or after Uncle David died.

"Well, since you're awake," Grandma practically sings, "you can help me water the garden. I've put another batch of cookies in the oven, so they should be ready by the time we finish."

"Okay," I grumble, not moving. I bet that victreebel was watching me sleep or something. Grandma got to the room a bit _too_ quickly to have raced downstairs and found a sword and kicked the door down. It's almost like she was expecting something to happen.

"Is it okay if I leave after helping you in the garden?" Now I can't help but think that maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. It looks like I've traded one overprotective family member for another. Except this one has a sword. Also, a carnivorous plant that's _still_ sitting on the bed watching me.

"It's up to you when you leave, dear," Grandma says. The fact that she's still holding a sword doesn't make me feel any more comfortable. "It's just that I haven't seen you in so long…"

"Okay," I sigh, moving from the bed. Maybe I've got a few things to learn about guilt-tripping people if Grandma can manage it so easily. "I'll get Kiki to help. But I'll have to leave soon because I pre-booked my gym battle online." When she looks at me as if she doesn't believe what I'm saying, I just grin. "I did it last night – at least that way I can beat the crowds, right?"

"That makes sense." It's obvious that she's not happy about it. The only problem is that I can't tell if she really wants to spend time with me or if my parents have told her to make sure I'm not getting myself into trouble. "In that case, I'll just have to make sure I enjoy every moment I spend with you."

She crushes me in a hug. I squeak as the sword points dangerously close to my face. Grandma, however, doesn't seem to notice. Instead she just begins laughing when Dave wraps a vine around us and begins crushing us both. She says that he's just showing us he cares. Personally, I think that he's just trying to crush us both to death and eat us.

I sigh and decide to hug her back. Whatever I think, she has to be lonely. A three-storey house to herself, a victreebel named after her dead son and grandchildren that she's adamant don't ring as much as they should.

Were I in her position, I guess I'd try and keep my grandkids around for as long as possible too.

"I guess that maybe I can leave a little later," I say. "I'll help you make lunch and then leave after that."

**-O-O-O-**

The world feels like it's spinning.

Everything is black. Sounds distort around me, almost like I'm underwater. I can feel the dirt underneath my feet. My hands touch the surface of a rock, smooth and covered in mud.

"I can't see," I say calmly. My own voice sounds like it's miles away from my ears. "And the sound is really distorted. But I can still feel things through my hands and feet properly. I can't feel you on my shoulder though."

Mandy's squawk sounds impossibly distant. I scrunch my eyes shut and the feeling like being pulled out of the bottom of a swimming pool washes over me. I stagger on my feet and just about manage to stay up standing. A pair of clawed hands presses between my shoulder blades, keeping me upright.

"Thanks Kiki," I say. She tutters something and wanders off, growling lowly. I see Cassie racing around, chortling and leaping into the air like she's doing ballet as Duke chases after her, spitting pinpoint streams of water.

Mandy squawks again and takes to the sky. "You're getting better," I tell her. "When you properly learn how to do that and fly without making any noise, you're gonna be awesome."

She fluffs up, preening. I grin as she takes off, screeching after Kiki. Needles zoom into the air in response. I laugh and start putting my shoes back on before Cassie comes over and decides to freeze my toes.

Duke's the first one that appears to grow bored with training. He wanders over to me, walking unsteadily on his legs. It looks like they're growing too fast for him to keep up with. I can't help but wonder when it is he'll fully turn into a poliwhirl. When it happens he'll lock himself in his poké ball for a little while – at least, that's what all the books say and what happened with Elizabeth for Jerry.

I see that Cassie joins in on hunting Mandy out of the sky. Mandy, for her part, starts firing down little blasts of sensory-depriving darkness. I see one hit Kiki and watch the way she staggers like the drunken people that fell over themselves back in Ebony.

Duke grunts, catching my attention. He grabs a stick and begins scrawling something in the dirt. I'm surprised to see it's an almost perfectly written letter – though just where he managed to pick up _calligraphy_ is beyond me.

"Why?" I say, reading it. "You're not spelling it right. If you're saying it as a question, it's spelt like this." I grab another stick and spell it properly underneath. Duke croaks in surprise. I watch him pull away weeds for more dirt to write in. He copies what I've written slowly, still somehow with loopy, cursive writing.

"Why are we training?" I guess. He bobs his head. "We're training to make you guys strong," I tell him. The roads between Cherrygrove and Violet are filled with forests and fields. It's almost like someone decided to pave a way through the countryside. At the edge of the field we're in, I can see a row of houses – or what might be part of a farm. Some of the ground underneath us is still full of sludgy, horrible smelling dirt. Apparently some of the fields are used for music festivals. I try my best not to imagine what might be left behind in the ground, if that is the case.

I look back at Duke. His butt is plonked down on the floor but he leans forwards on his arms, almost like a darminitan. Little by little, his arms are getting longer and more muscular. He continues to stare at me, as if I might provide him with all the mysteries of the world.

"There's only so much you can learn without training all the time. Since we can't really go around beating up other pokémon, this is what we can do. It's like people that go to gyms and lift weights all the time to make their muscles stronger. If we keep doing this, you guys will get faster, more accurate, that sort of thing."

He nods, croaking. With his stick he scrawls something else in the dirt.

"Why?" The breath leaves my lungs in a heavy sigh. I'm _sick_ of that question. "It's because otherwise you'll be too easily defeated. When you were in Cerulean, I guess that you didn't have all that many things that might attack you. Now we're out here, lots of things might try to kill us – and not all of them are gonna be pokémon. We've gotta make sure that you guys can defend yourselves. I mean, it would suck if a big ursaring came along and just ate you."

This time he actually writes something else. 'U'.

"Me?" I even point to myself. He nods again. I grab my stick and write the proper way he should spell it underneath. Again he copies me, once again showing me that I have impossibly rubbish handwriting.

I shake my head at him. "Humans don't change as quickly as you guys. It takes us a _lot_ longer."

This time, he actually shakes his head. _You_, he writes again, then looks up and points to my other pokémon. Now Cassie's in Kiki's arms, firing needle-thin beams of ice into the air. Mandy twirls around them like she's competing in a sport, screeching a sound like laughter all the way.

"I study when you're training," I say, looking back to Duke. I point at my head. "I train my brain. Make it smarter." Well, until I say things like that and make myself sound stupid. "I want to study and learn about history." He looks confused. "Um, what happened in the past. Everything that made the world the way it is today. I train my brain whilst you guys train your bodies."

He's silent for a moment, apparently deep in thought. Then he croaks, shakes his head again and underlines what he's already written.

I sigh. Clearly this isn't going to go anywhere. "You want me to train with you guys?" He bobs his head up and down, almost smiling. The spirals on his stomach seem to rotate whenever he's happy. It makes my eyes go all funny. "Alright." It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, I guess. Ali usually fights with her pokémon and some even go running and that with them.

"Only things like running." I can't help but remember the test we had to do in school – the whole running between two cones on either side of the room. I had hoped it was the only time I would have to do that. But for some odd reason, it's the only sort of thing my traitorous brain can think of to make my pokémon and I run faster.

I guess I can see the logic in it though. There's little point in making sure my pokémon can run fast if I can't too. If we ever needed to flee a big, angry pokémon it'd be pretty stupid for me to be the one that falls behind and gets eaten.

Of course, the main problem with this is that my pokémon can't really _run_. Kiki's legs aren't properly developed – neither are Duke's. Mandy flies and Cassie's legs are so tiny that she falls on her face half the time.

"I'll figure something out, okay?" It seems to please Duke. He croaks happily and bounces away to join in on the apparent free-for-all that's starting between my pokémon. I watch the way they dodge around each other's attacks and groan. I'm gonna have to include myself in _that_ one day too. Pretty pointless to make sure my pokémon can dodge blasts of fire if all I can do is just stand there like a moron and watch it come to burn me.

"I should have stayed with Grandma," I moan. I left not an hour ago, with my pack renewed with all sorts of goodies and with the promise that I'll make sure I call more often. If the way she treats her phone is any indication, I think that maybe ringing her landline might be the best idea. It doesn't seem to get the same treatment.

Catching sight of my pokémon, I groan. Apparently the orders of 'stay inside the field' aren't clear enough.

I really hope those buildings are just farmhouses. Otherwise those people are _not_ going to be happy with a vullaby flying in through their open windows.

**-O-O-O-**

Three days later, I find myself stuck in Violet and waiting on the apparently crazy, bird-obsessed gym leader for a battle.

It turns out that the one thing people mention about Falkner's gym is the fact that it _stinks. _With what has to be about a hundred birds flapping around inside, the smell of bird poo clogs up my nose and makes it ache. In fact, even though I'm sat in a little reception room, making certain that I'm sat on top of a puffy little air freshener thing that smells like cherries, I'm pretty sure that I can _taste_ the smell of bird poo in the air.

Of course, the moment the receptionist calls my name, I realise it's all been for nothing anyway. I should have booked ahead, like I told Grandma I'd done. Instead, after two days hiking my way from Cherrygrove, I get to the gym in Violet and find out that Falkner's not even gonna be here for the next week.

Are gym leaders even allowed to take holidays? Shouldn't they have people there to look after the gym and do battles in their absence? Or is that something that doesn't happen anymore?

I sigh and decide instead to book a battle for a fortnight's time. Apparently his first week back is already manic busy. Naturally, the moment the receptionist sees just the sort of battle I need, her eyes nearly pop out of her skull – and she has pretty big, freaky eyes to begin with anyway. If there were any bigger I'm pretty sure she could advertise herself as the face of Halloween.

The air is chilly when I leave the gym. I shudder and put on a big, black hoodie from inside my bag. By the way people are looking at me, black hoodies and purple jeans must look ridiculous. Well, they can judge all they like, but I don't have to dress like I fit in with such an ornamental city. I'm pretty sure that if someone ever went back in time and ended up in ancient Violet, they wouldn't know for the first few days.

The Ruins of Alph are only an hour's walk from Violet. Truth be told, even if I hadn't had to battle Falkner, I would have still probably ended up coming here anyway. People still haven't figured out just what's up with the ruins – even though there's scientists there everyday still trying to work out just why it is that the unown seem to give out mystery radio signals that interfere with everyone's electronic devices.

I let Mandy out of her ball and keep her on my shoulder as I make my way there. At least with her nibbling at the frayed strings on my hood, people seem pleased to see me, rather than the continual judgy looks I got from them.

Bird pokémon seriously aren't that amazing. Just because Falkner's gym has been in his family for like a million and one years doesn't mean that birds are the best things ever. The fact that there's notice boards filled with warnings about wild ekans and arbok that happen to be eating people's pet pidgey kinda says that their beloved pokémon are pretty useless when something wants to eat them.

I should get myself an ekans. I could wear it like a scarf and teach it to play dead, only to reveal itself when someone really annoys me. Then the last thing that they ever see is my scarf suddenly coming to life and eating their face.

The thought makes me grin to myself as I almost skip down the road. Paved streets slowly begin to open out into more grassy plots. People walk past me more infrequently and the road seems to disappear under dirt and freshly-mown weeds.

Mandy squawks and takes flight, chasing after a little rattata. I shrug, instead looking at the crumbling remains of the ruins, visible even from just outside of Violet.

No one knows just what the ruins where back when they were first built. Some people think that they resemble temples from the pre-Kanjo era, whereas others think that they even resemble what could have been the massive castles that Kalos still has a few of. Given that the fossil records show that people back then were apparently all _giants_ and the doorways are notoriously tiny, I think that maybe that option isn't likely to be true.

I place my fingers in my lips and try to whistle. Instead a wet farting sound comes out. I groan, thankful no one was around to hear that and just whistle normally. Mandy trills from somewhere ahead in answer.

Apparently I still need to train her in actually _returning_ to me when I whistle. I sigh and add it to the bottom of the mental checklist, underneath pretty much _everything_ else that needs improving with all of them.

That said, I scratch off 'make Cassie normal'. That's never happening.

When I reach the tourist gates to the ruins, I find Mandy sat atop one of the old stone arches, happily watching the steady flock of tourists. One by one they line up, laying their bags on the conveyer belts for scanning. When they start taking pictures of the vullaby sat atop the ruins, she preens and flaps her wings as if she's the queen of all the ruins.

"Mandy," I sigh. She squawks and zooms down to land on my shoulder. Apparently it's impressive because suddenly I have trainers – who are _much_ older than me – asking me how long it took for me to train her to do that. Apparently I'm just lucky to have a bird that enjoys sitting on my shoulder.

That or Jerry trained her a little before he gave her to me. As much as I would like to claim it's all because of me, I know that really, he would have done something to make sure that she wouldn't pluck out my eyeballs in my sleep.

After the crowd of people get bored with me – or more, my lack of knowledge on how I trained Mandy – I'm finally able to pass through all the gates with the big, angry-looking security guards. They don't smile once or even talk during the entire time when they take apart my bag and look through it all. Sure, I know that the ruins are a national treasure and everything, but why would I decide to blow them up?

I decide not to voice that opinion. They don't look like they would understand that train of thought.

When I clear security, I take the time to slowly wander around the tourist parts of the ruins, Mandy on my shoulder. Trainers with bird pokémon and a few with ghosts walk around with high-vis bands across their shoulders and little name badges.

I think I remember reading somewhere that Morty and Falkner make their gym interns patrol the ruins as part of their membership at the gym. It must be _pretty_ boring to just wander around all day, unable to do much in the ruins but watch people and making sure they're not touching the crumbly rocks or stepping over the red tape barriers that fence off the restricted areas.

The little bits of the ruins that I'm allowed to walk through are just ancient carvings, statues of old pokémon and bits of historical information that can be found anywhere online. I follow behind a tour group and hear the tour guide – a woman that's _clearly_ not dressed for ruins, with high heels bigger than any I've seen before but wearing a hard hat – regurgitating a speech that I'm pretty sure I read online somewhere too.

My sigh echoes around the caverns of the ruins. Mandy finds the fact that her voice echoes back to her infinitely more amusing than anyone else does. After the third time she starts shrieking in my ear, I seriously consider just taping her beak shut.

Thankfully she listens when I ask her to stop.

When I emerge back out into the light, I see a flock of natu take off into the sky. I hope that it's just Mandy that scared them off, because a whole flock of psychic pokémon just fluttering off into the distance _cannot_ be a good sign.

"Come on," I say to Mandy, even though she's sitting on my shoulder and so has no real say in where we're going. I want to see what the ruins _really _have to offer – not the normal stuff that they let everyone see. I want to find out about all the secrets they're making sure people don't know.

Most of the study of history is discovering other people's secrets. By that token, it should be pretty easy to sneak around and find out what the ruins are hiding.

I walk back into the remains of what might have been a prayer room. The signs also say that it could have been someone's bedroom, a sky-dungeon (whatever that is – aren't dungeons usually gloomy and depressing?) or a second dining room.

Behind a string of red rope is a _giant_ stone puzzle that occupies an entire chamber. From what I can see, it looks like a carving of a kabuto, though the sections are all slightly misaligned.

If I remember rightly, then someone solved the puzzle ages ago when the archaeologists, historians and scientists couldn't. Apparently it also dropped him into the lowest reaches of some underground ruins, but he also apparently survived that unharmed so it can't possibly be true.

Whatever might have happened, I want to find out. I make sure that no one is watching before I press my foot gently against the ground behind the rope. No alarms sound. No warning lights flash.

Smiling to myself, I jump over the rope and begin to investigate. Mandy apparently knows that I'm doing something I shouldn't, because she starts to make sounds that sound almost like cackling.

"Quiet!" I hiss at her. She doesn't take the hint. I decide that maybe ignoring her is the best policy.

The puzzle pieces are boulders that are half my height and twice my width. It would take a pokémon of _amazing_ strength to even hope to move them. Unless Duke suddenly evolves twice into a poliwrath or Kiki overdoses on steroids, it might be a while before they manage to move anything quite like that.

"Come on," I sigh, moving away from them and further into the ruins. Each step seems to make the world around me grow darker. It reminds me of all the myths about the descent into Hades.

Just what I needed to think of. Because now all I can think about is how I'm walking into the Underworld and I'm going to bump into a massive Cerberus waiting to eat my face. That would totally be my luck.

What would the Cerberus be though? One head of a houndoom, another of an arcanine and maybe a manetric too? Surely it would be better to have something else though, as well? I mean, I get that hell is meant to be all fiery and doom and gloom and everything, but surely having two fire breathing pokémon as part of a Cereberus would be overkill? I'd spread it out; have one fiery, the manetric and something else too so it would be a real triple threat demon thing.

… I may be thinking about this a little too much.

I stop walking at the top of a crumbly, old set of stairs. They seem to have been chiselled into the stone floor. Lanterns are dangling on little hooks on the wall that are way too new to have been made any time in the distant past. Even the lanterns look like something that I could find in a store somewhere, instead of something constructed in ancient times.

I reach up and scratch Mandy's tummy. She coos under the touch.

"Keep a look out," I whisper. "Make sure nothing comes out."

I have to press my fingertips against the wall, because there's no banister for me to lean on. The wall feels damp and slightly warm, which just gives me mental images of walking into some big massive pokémon's mouth.

I follow the path of lanterns and hope that I don't encounter any tonsils dangling from the ceiling. If I see any of them, I'm screaming and running back the way I came, even if the depths happen to have all the mysteries of history laid out in simple terms.

At the bottom of the stairs is a massive statue that looks like it was carved out of granite or something. Because the light from the torches is so bad, I have to pull out my phone and stare at it through the camera. The smart camera thing helps, just a little.

It looks like it might have been an ancient form of a rhydon or something. Inscriptions look like they've been weathered away beneath the possible-rhydon. I trace my fingers across them and find crumbling letters beneath my touch. They could say anything, or they could say nothing.

I sigh and put my phone away. What I wouldn't give to be able to travel back in time and see everything the way it was meant to be. I mean, I don't know how people don't like history, yet they happily gossip about other people and try and discover their secrets. History is just the study of secrets of people that died well before we were even born! It's amazing to see that the things that they developed and the ideas they had are still used today. The wheel, writing, even the myths and legends they revered as religion.

In the glow of the firelight, it almost seems as if the walls are shining.

When I blink and the dull glow of the walls vanishes, I rub my eyes until spots appear. There's no way that the walls were glowing. That would just be _weird._

Even so, I let Kiki out by my side, just in case.

She seems to loom above me in the darkness; her shadow stretching on impossible distances like a vampire out of some black and white film. The darkness forms almost a cloak around her, that even seems to flutter behind her with every step she takes.

"Stay on guard," I tell my pokémon. Even if I am just going crazy and imagining that the walls are glowing, better to have them out here with me, rather than in their balls and too far out of my reach.

The walls seem to be covered in ancient writing, decorated with what seems to be eyes.

My hand hovers just an inch in front of the letters. I've heard the stories of the unown. Weird, psychic little creatures that resemble letters and numbers. When they get angry, they swarm around someone and bombard them with psychic imagery until their brains turn to mush.

Maybe touching possible-unowns isn't the smartest idea.

Kiki growls a warning. I spin around and find her stood protectively before me, her claws outstretched and almost glowing with darkness, as impossible as it should be.

A swinging light illuminates the corridor. I hear footsteps. They sound like heavy boots, stomping on the floor like a rapidash would trot across a cobbled street.

The footsteps reveal a woman in black with a hardhat glowing on her head. As she steps into the lantern light around me, I see the denim jacket she wears and the long, blonde hair that runs down to the middle of her back.

"Cynthia!" I squeak, flinching as my voice actually breaks.

She doesn't seem surprised to see me. In fact, her face doesn't move at all.

"Hello," she says, her voice polite and calm.

I can't manage to form words. _Cynthia_ is down here and I am too and this is almost everything I ever wanted to happen and I just compared her to a clomping rapidash.

I really hope she doesn't have the power to read minds.

"Hi," I breathe, finally.

She smiles at me. It isn't really _kind_, like Ali's or my parents', but instead it's just like she thinks the one facial expression will reassure me.

She steps up to the walls, ignoring the way Kiki growls lowly at her. Mandy rests on my shoulders, her beak buried in my hair. I know that she's watching though, waiting for any sudden moves. Of course I have no doubt that Cynthia would never do anything bad. But if she did try anything, my pokémon wouldn't stand a chance.

As Cynthia presses the tips of her fingers to the wall, the letters spring into purple, glowing life. It's so bright that I see white spots in my vision and even blinking isn't enough to try and get rid of them.

When the spots vanish from my vision, I'm greeted to a wall full of words that don't really make any sense at all. It all looks like jibberish to me, with maybe one or two words that I vaguely recognise from some stone tablets in a museum.

"It's ancient Sumerian," Cynthia says, crouching before the words. Her voice is quiet, yet it carries in the empty ruins. "The common theory is that unown can telepathically reach out to a nearby mind and change their appearance according to the person's native tongue. This is why most researchers can spend their entire lives dedicated to researching what the words say, only to have another person have a conflicting interpretation, simply because of the language barriers."

Nodding, I move a little closer to her. Even though I can see the dirt stains on her clothes, there's a smell of strawberries in the air around her.

"What do they say?" I ask.

She shrugs and stands up fully. "I'm afraid I don't speak ancient Sumerian."

"But," I protest, "I thought you said they change depending on the people's minds that are around them! So it must think that you speak that language, right?"

"Or perhaps they cannot read my mind properly and this was the best attempt that they could manage?"

I frown. When I go to touch the glowing unown, Kiki's hand snaps out to stop me. I stand like that for a moment, my hand outstretched and held by my maractus, just watching the glow of the unown writings.

"If they're scanning people's minds for the language, that means that they have to have been taught it at some point," I say. "Or maybe they're old enough that they taught us the language in the first place." I take my hand back off Kiki, but all I can think about are the different photos and sketches of unown writing that I've read about. "Do they ever appear in normal languages?"

It's the point where I would expect an adult to laugh at me. The amount of times I've asked people in the museums about stuff and all they've done is sneered at me for apparently asking stupid questions.

They never answer them though. I mean, if they're so stupid, why aren't the answers obvious?

Cynthia doesn't laugh. Instead she says, almost tonelessly, "Define normal."

"You know," I say, still thinking, "like the ones we speak these days. English and Chinese and everything else."

"No." Her boots make rapidash-noises on the floors again. She steps closer to the wall and brushes her hand through the air in front of it. The letters glow, almost in response to her touch. "The most recent language they have ever been recorded to display is Latin. Or Old English. Language history is not my forte."

I struggle to believe that. I've seen her give talks about history and know everything she's talking about. As if she doesn't know something.

Instead I say, "Then maybe they can only appear in languages they know. What if instead of scanning our minds to see what language we can speak, what if they're doing something else? Can't some psychics sense our past lives or something."

"People believe that's possible, yes. Of course, the existence of past lives and telepathic ancestry and still debated."

I understood only a bit of that. Even so, I nod like I understand her completely.

"Well what if they're the _proof_ that it exists? Maybe they're scanning people and they're able to see the languages our ancestors speak?"

Cynthia crouches down beside me. A wave of my hand stops Kiki from eviscerating her face. Even so, Kiki seems to tower behind me, waiting for a chance to strike. With the way Cynthia acts, it's almost like Kiki's not even there.

"What if instead, they simply search for the language you speak? The English language has roots in Germanic origin."

"Then why aren't they showing up in that instead?" I bite my lip as I think about it. Cynthia says nothing. "What's the oldest written language?" I ask her.

She gestures towards the wall. "You are currently looking at it."

"Then why are they showing up like that?" I ask. "Do you think they're confused? Like, because there's more than one person here and there's even pokémon, maybe they've gone for the oldest possible thing because everything came from that?"

"Perhaps."

She smiles at me. I recognise it from a few of my teachers as a 'you've done well and impressed me' sort of smile.

Even so, I can't help but grunt, "What?"

"The last time we met, you told me that you were attempting to get into the Anville history school. I wanted to see for myself what your capabilities were."

I'm pretty sure my mouth is dangling open wider than a golbat's.

"You… remember meeting me?"

"Of course. It isn't quite every day that I meet someone with a pokémon capable of disregarding Inti's illusions."

Cynthia remembers me. Holy _cow_ she actually remembers me! I think I might die right now.

"I have something for you!" I say abruptly, throwing my bag to the floor. It startles Mandy into hovering in the air, which of course only makes Kiki twitch as if she's about to leap to my defence.

I ignore them both and start shoving everything that's inside my bag out of the way. Finally I reach the little storage container thing that I left everything in. Really, I've just sealed them in some washed out Tupperware boxes I got from a takeaway place, but Cynthia doesn't need to know that. She'll never be able to tell – so long as they don't happen to smell like noodles.

Surprisingly enough, they don't. I run my finger over the ancient papers, wondering what they say. After I found them in Snowpoint, I think I've pretty much forgotten about them.

I say as much to Cynthia as I pry them out as delicately as I can. "They were hidden," I say as I hold them out. "I've been trying to translate some of them and I think I've got so far as understanding their equivalent of 'and'. But I've had so much else to do and just no time to actually look at them."

Her eyes actually widen just a fraction as she takes them. Score! I so _knew_ holding onto them was a good idea.

"These are…" she says quietly. "I won't know until I analyse them, but I have a feeling these are important." She taps her foot on the ground as she scans through them. The sound echoes all the way through the ruins. "I have an idea," she says, reaching into a pocket and handing me a card. _Her_ card. With a contact number and an email address and everything.

Holy crap I need to frame this and put it on my wall. Except I don't have a permanent house any more these days. I'll just have to frame it and keep in on a necklace or something.

My parents are probably going to lost the ability to speak when I tell them about this.

"Take this," she says, placing it into my hands. I think I make a squeaking sound. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't hand out my details so freely. You however… I have heard good things from the gym leaders conducting your entrance exams."

She's heard good things about me. Cynthia thinks that I am awesome. Oh my god I need to find my brother and rub it in his face. That'll show him for all that time he spent being mean to me about having a poster of Cynthia in my room!

"You have?" I manage to ask. I want to shout at myself for sounding so stupid. Just how can my brain be working so fast and my mouth so slowly?

"I have. Lenora informed us all when she told you the details, so that we would be aware of such a challenge. The reason why the scholarship to Anville is not advertised anywhere is because only alumni of the college can refer you for the programme." She smiles. "Now I find myself looking forward to you completing your gym challenge and attending the interview for Anville, should you still wish to proceed."

"Of course I do!" I blurt. Maybe a bit too loudly, given how my voice echoes. I manage to clear my throat and ignore the way Kiki glares at me. Mandy just cackles as she settles back on my shoulder. "Why do I have to interview anyway? I thought the whole challenge thing let me get my scholarship anyway?"

"It does," she says, "however, you are also assigned a personal tutor when you enrol, in addition to a supervisor whom you will work with. The interview helps us determine where your interests lie, in addition to who you would work best with. If I may ask, where do your interests in history lie, at this moment in time?"

"Everywhere," I say without thinking. "But, I think I like the ideas of the myths and everything more."

Her eyes light up a little as she smiles. "I think I understand what you mean there."

I grin. "But not just normal myths," I say, thinking of Diz and his underground kingdom of Alamanurr. "I mean, whenever we look into them, we're always trying to understand them from a human point of view. I wanna know about the _pokémon_ ones. Like, what do they worship and do they have any sort of holy relics of their own?"

Cynthia says nothing. I think, however, I can see a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. It could be just a trick of the light though. Or me being a bit too hopeful.

"That sounds interesting." She pulls another card out of her pocket, this time with a pen. "If I may, would you be so kind as to write your own contact details on the back of this? When I find the information these papers hold, I will share it with you."

"Of course!" My hands shake as I try and write my number and my email address for her. Looking at it, I can't help but feel that my handwriting is so sloppy in comparison. I should have had Duke write it all for me. Or teach me how to write like him. Or just even tell me where the hell he learnt how to write in proper loopy, cursive writing.

"Here," I say, handing everything back to her. "Um, sorry if it's a little hard to read. The firelight isn't the best for seeing what I'm writing."

She spares a glance at it before sliding it into the inside pocket of her jacket. "It's fine. Thank you. One thing, however, just before I leave."

"What?" I ask.

She lifts her hand. As she does, the air next to her shimmers. Out of nowhere, a man and a xatu appear.

"Oh. My. God," I say. Kiki hisses and lunges at them. Only me pressing my hand against her arm stops her. Mandy screeches and takes to the air, circling all of us, shrieking bloody murder.

"It would seem," Cynthia says – and I swear she's _grinning_, "that you may still have some work to do on seeing through all illusions."

I think my jaw is currently on the floor. If it gets any bigger I'm going to have a clown step out of it like those weird cars they have.

"How did you-? When did you-? Where did you even-?" I groan and bury my hands in my hair. Pulling it doesn't make anything suddenly make perfect sense. "Falkner?!"

He bows. "Hello. My apologies for the illusion. Cynthia wished to see who was walking through the restricted parts of the ruins and wanted to make certain that we were not dealing with criminals."

"Oh," I say. Yeah, totally forgot I was in the restricted part. "Sorry."

"It is not a problem, as it seems you had information we did not realise we required."

If I had appeared out of nowhere, I would have done it whilst wearing a cape and done something really dramatic. Wearing a hard hat, denim overalls and a dirty white shirt underneath isn't exactly awe-inspiring now that the shock of his illusion has worn off.

"Can you teach me how to do that?" I ask. How much fun would it be to suddenly appear and scare people senseless? Or just to make myself invisible in general? Hello bank robbery.

"I would think it more prudent to learn how to sense and dispel the illusions first, no?" Cynthia still has a laugh in her voice as she speaks. "On such a note, I am afraid that I must make haste if I wish to properly analyse these documents. Falkner, may I?"

"Help yourself," he says, gesturing to the xatu.

"Thank you." She turns to look at me. "Thank you for these, Miss Finch," she says, holding up the papers. Hopefully I can get my name in a published article somewhere. That would be so cool. "I look forward to our next meeting."

She brushes her hand against the xatu and they vanish in a flash of blue. She even makes teleporting seem more awesome than it already is.

"So," Falkner says, drawing my attention back to him, "I understand from your conversation that you will soon challenge me."

"Um, that's the plan," I say. "I went to your gym this morning but they said that you were busy for a few days and I'd have to wait."

"That is true. However, I may be able to make an exception." He sweeps a hand forwards, as if trying to scoot me back out the way I came. "Allow me to escort you out of here. If you arrive at the gym at daybreak tomorrow, I will be able to commence your testing."

"Okay," I say, returning Kiki and following after him. I still notice the way he eyes Mandy, as if she's some sort of exotic bird that he just wants to pet. I've heard the stories of him and his love for birds. Even if he is as nice as he seems, he is _not_ dressing her up in something pink and frilly.

"And make certain to wear something warm for tomorrow. Also, pack for hostile terrain."

"Alright." I've heard that he has his battles up in the sky sometimes, or even on some sort of massively high-up podium somewhere.

Whatever he's planning, I'll be nice, if only so he can teach me all about those illusions. As I follow him, however, I notice the faint smell of strawberries around him. Apparently whatever illusion he was using wasn't enough to cover up smell too.

I grin to myself, keeping that knowledge tucked away. When he teaches me about the illusions, he'll be surprised with how much I've already found out.

**-O-O-O-**

Dawn sees me already waiting outside the gym with a big, puffy winter jacket on. People that are on their way to work give me judgy looks as they walk past.

Well excuse me, but if a gym leader told you to dress up warm for your battle, you'd be in the same situation as me.

Finally the doors open behind me and I'm greeted with the sight of Falkner wearing a loose blue kimono-sort of thing. It's tied up with a gold waistband and has huge shoulderpads which I assume he uses to stop all his birds digging their claws into his shoulders.

"Good to see you took my advice," he says. "If you would follow me?" He walks back into his gym, but instead of heading towards the battlefield, he leads me into the elevator.

Once I'm inside, he hits the button to take us to the roof. As the elevator fills my head with tinny, rubbish music, Falkner refuses to talk. He stares up at the display telling us what floor we're on, smiling all the while.

When the doors ding open, I understand why he told me to dress warm.

A _frigid_ gust of wind whips over me and I'm pretty sure it freezes my face over.

That, however, is secondary to the fact that he has a huge blue-scaled _dragon_ flicking its tongue as us. It spreads its huge, red wings and roars as Falkner approaches it, deafening me as a result.

"Take a seat," Falkner says to me. If he expects me to have a mid-air battle whilst sitting on a dragon, he has another thing coming. Mostly because I'll find a way to take the dragon and use it to burn villages.

The salamance hisses as I take a step closer. I manage not to scream as I leap back about five steps.

"Don't worry," Falkner says. "She won't bite."

No, she doesn't need to bite because she can just _swallow me whole._

Tentatively, I walk towards the dragon. Falkner scratches her behind the big, spiky horn-like ears on her head, which gets a little noise out of her I never thought I'd hear coming from something so huge.

Thankfully there's already a seat tied to her back. The only problem is that she's still about twice my height, easily. Falkner whistles and she settles down so suddenly that the entire floor of the roof quakes and I'm nearly knocked off my feet.

"Thanks," I say, pretending that I'm totally not bothered by the massive dragon. I manage to climb on top of her and strap myself into the seat without getting eaten or deep fried, so I consider it some small achievement.

Falkner comes over, checks that I'm secure and then jumps up and sits on her back, forgoing the seat. With a glance over his shoulder he says, "Hold on."

It's all the warning I get before the salamence spreads her wings and takes to the sky. I can feel the way the roof buckles under the weight of her flapping wings. My head feels like its spinning and I'm pretty sure that my stomach is still on the ground somewhere, crying out for me to come back and rescue it.

My hands grip the sides of the seat and I refuse to ever let go. Thankfully it doesn't wobble or anything as the salamence soars through the sky. I can see the skyscrapers of Goldenrod – hell, I can see the ones in _Saffron_ from all the way up in the sky!

The wind whips in my face. My hair flies behind me, completely out of my control. Falkner's clothes flap wildly, like a flag on a really windy day.

I so need something capable of flying me like this.

"Where are we going?" I ask. Of course, my voice gets lost to the sound of the wind. At least I have Falkner in front of me to stop any little bugs from squishing into my face. I have to scream my question at least two more times before he finally hears me.

"I'm conducting your test off-site," he yells. I hope he doesn't expect a conversation now, because my throat hurts. "We'll be there soon!"

I nod, even though he can't see me. With nothing else to do, I try to enjoy the sights. Everything seems so tiny from so high up in the sky. As we pass over what I'm pretty sure is Cherrygrove, I can see the little specks of people running through the streets. A crowd are gathered around two pokémon flying just above ground level, attacking each other. They're all too little to identify just what they are.

The town fades away, replaced with big green trees. Wherever we're going, it's apparently in a forest somewhere.

If the way the wind is punching my face is any indication, we're also going _really_ fast.

I spend what feels like about twenty minutes just staring out and enjoying the sights before Falkner warns me that we're landing.

I look down to see a little clearing in the trees. As we get closer to the ground, I see the remains of a campfire. Scraps of a tent are still hammered down into the ground. Pots and pans are scattered over the dirt.

"Holy crap," I say. The salamence lands with enough force to send the pots bouncing away into the trees. Falkner's already leaping off before his salamence even tucks her wings away.

"What happened here?" I ask, struggling with the seat ties.

"I'm not sure," Falkner says. "This clearing was empty last night when I came here, to make sure we could use it for today's test. It would seem, however, that someone attempted to camp here."

"But what happened?" I manage to get the restraints of the seat off and slip away from the salamence. Thankfully she doesn't seem to notice me scurrying away from her.

"I can't be certain," he says. He pulls at his face with his long, almost completely-bone fingers. "What I do know is that we cannot stay here. Get back in your seat. We're postponing your test for now."

"No you're not!" I shout, stomping my foot. "Flying me back, I mean." At least that gets rid of _some_ of the horror in his face. "If you've flown me all the way here, we shouldn't waste it. _Something's_ happened here and we're the only ones here. It doesn't matter if I don't have a million badges that say I'm able to deal with it. We have to find out what happened!"

Falkner sighs as he rubs his eyelids. "Very well," he relents. "If you would be so kind, could you retrieve the crockery that was displaced into the bushes? They could hold some clue as to what's happened here."

"Sure," I say. Luckily I saw what way they went, so at least I don't have to aimlessly search around a group of trees that all look the same – except that one obviously has a beedrill nest at the very top, so I'm keeping as far away from that as possible.

Nothing on the ground seems to have been disturbed. In fact, it seems almost like I'm the first one through some of the foliage in what has to be a long time. Unless whatever did it could float, I doubt they came from this direction.

I sigh as I bend down and pick up a big, empty stew pot. There isn't even a smudge of old food in there. It's as if whoever cleaned it did such an amazing job that it looks like it's never been used.

When I spin it over in my hands, I see the barcode sticker still on the bottom, still as fresh as one in a store would be.

"Hey…" I say, frowning at it. That just doesn't make any sense. Unless they teleported in or flew over on something as fast as Falkner's salamence, there is no way that a freshly-bought pot can be here, given that there aren't any stores _anywhere_ nearby.

"That doesn't make any sense," I say. I ignore the rest of the pots and pans and instead double back. Falkner is going to want to know about this. "Falkner!" I shout.

As if in response, I hear the beating of his salamence's wings. It roars with enough volume to shake the trees around me.

I glance up and make sure it didn't annoy the beedrill-tree. Thankfully the nest seems abandoned. Hopefully.

"Hey Falkner!" I shout, rushing towards them. I hear the salamence beat its wings again.

Bursting out of the clearing, I see that the salamence is no longer on the ground.

In fact, it's already airborne. With Falkner on its back.

"Hey!" I shout up at him. "What're you doing? What about me?"

He doesn't hear me. He doesn't even look at me. Instead, his salamence roars again, flaps her wings and soars off into the distance.

"Hey!" I scream after them, loud enough that my throat hurts. "You _jerks_! What about me?"

They don't turn around and come to get me. In fact, I get the feeling like this was the plan all along. I throw the pot after them, missing my targets miserably.

This can't be my challenge, I tell myself. There is no way that my exam would involve me being left with missing campers and obvious signs of attack. Maybe he's just found someone dying and needs to rush them back or something.

I try to keep telling myself that it's the case. Little by little, I can feel it helping. They're coming back for me, they have to be.

Out of curiosity, I pull out my pokédex to check just where Falkner wanted his test to be conducted. What I see nearly makes me drop the dex in shock.

I'm stuck on Mount Silver.


	31. Bonus Interlude I

_**Pokémon**_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Bonus Interlude I|<strong>

**\**_Jeremy Finch**/**_

**-O-O-O-**

"We've got something to tell you. Right now, inside your mummy's tummy is a brand new, little sister for you! How do you feel about that?"

With all the knowledge that he can muster at the age of five, Jerry pokes his mother's stomach as if he may see the mystery creature hiding inside. When nothing emerges, he looks up, frowning.

"How did she get in there?" he asks.

His parents share a look he has no hope of understanding.

"A little sister," his dad says, bending down to hug Jerry's shoulders. "Do you know what that means?" When he shakes his head, his dad smiles and pokes him in the chest. "That means you're going to be a big brother. She's going to look up to you all the time. It's up to you to protect her."

He gets the mental image of himself stood there, with a billowing cape and wearing a bright blue t shirt with a J scrawled over the front. Protector of the weak, the young and the baby sister.

"Can I name her?" he asks.

His parents share a look again. "We've already decided on a name."

"What is it?"

His dad pokes him on the nose. "You'll find out when you're older."

**-O-O-O-**

"God damn it!"

His phone bounces amazingly well over the grass. Groaning as he rubs his eyelids, Jerry wonders just what sort of god would make _her_ be his little sister. They're meant to be cute and love ponies and do stuff like that, aren't they? Instead he has this history loving, stubborn, hard-headed _brat_ of a sister that thinks running off into the night in search of a totodile is an acceptable excuse.

It would be believable, had she also not packed up her tent and taken everything with her. Even if she can be smart when it comes to studying, her lies are terrible at best.

"What the hell is she thinking? It's one thing to want to travel round Johto herself, but sneaking off during the middle of the night? _God_ I could just strangle her sometimes."

Ali grabs his phone from the ground and tosses it to him. "I can't say for sure," she starts slowly, "but there must be a reason for why she would do something like this. From what I've seen of her, she doesn't really tend to do things without some thought into the matter - and even then, she still makes sure that it's in some way important to her."

He scoffs. "Like sneaking into Snowpoint Temple?"

"It's history, isn't it?" she supplies, shrugging. "I can't claim to understand how her mind works, but there are thought processes there, no matter how little we're able to see them."

"That makes so little sense I'm almost sure that she made you say it."

"Look Jerry," she says, putting her hand on his shoulder. "I don't have a little sister, so I'm not an expert here. But from what I had to deal with when my nephew ran away, maybe this situation isn't too different. Maybe she just wanted to get away for a little while?"

He sighs and feels old in a way that he's certain should only come with middle age. "I just wish she'd actually say something rather than running off with half an idea."

Abruptly, his phone buzzes in his hand. Surprised at who it is, he opens the message to read a handful of expletives and general nonsense.

"Is that her?" Ali asks.

"Sort of. It's my grandma." He has to picture a keyboard in an attempt to understand just what she may have wanted to write. "Looks like my idiot sister has just decided to visit her. And then there's something that might be that I don't visit enough, or it could be something about a toilet getting clogged up."

Ali snorts loud enough to startle him. She takes her hand back from his shoulder and uses it to cover her mouth. "Sorry. But that's a bit of a difference in topics."

"Grandma still can't use a phone to save her life. Texting at least. Ringing her usually results in about half a day wasted from her nattering down your ear."

"Guess she misses you." The tone of her voice suggests it may be a tender subject. Before he can ask her about it, she quickly says, "So are you going to go visit her too?"

He considers the idea, up until the moment he remembers the ravenous victreebel that seems to delight in salivating over unsuspecting victims.

"Maybe not just yet. I'll go in a few weeks or something. We're coming up to the birthday rush again soon, so it'll be sometime near then."

"Birthday rush?" Ali asks.

He shrugs. "All our birthdays are in the same month. Well, my parents and my sister. Grandparents are the month after."

Ali's eyes widen a fraction. "How does that-?" She shakes her head, cutting herself off. "Never mind. At least I know when mating season in the Finch household happens to be."

A little bit of bile does a dance in the back of his throat. "Ew." He grimaces. "Can we not mention anything like that again?"

"Why not?" The grin she wears is surprisingly similar to the one usually plastered on his sister's face. It's remarkably unnerving. "Your parents mated, didn't they?" She puts just enough emphasis on the word to make him shudder in revulsion. Noticing it, she cackles. "Don't tell me you thought you were grown in a tank somewhere? We could always grab an animus and make you relive your ancestors' memories and find out for sure!"

The grin falls off her face as she tilts her head, considering. "You know, that's something they never really covered in those games. I mean, sure you help so and so meet their baby daddy, but then they gloss over the fact you just lived your great-whatever grandparents just hooking up."

The urge to crawl back into his tent is almost impossible to ignore. "You worry me sometimes."

"I worry myself all the time. I've learnt that I imagine some weird shit." She shrugs. "At least it keeps me interesting."

"If that's the word you want to use for it, sure, let's go with that."

She swats his arm. "First one's a warning shot. Actually, you're on _far_ more than your first one, aren't you?"

"No," he says quickly, all-too-aware of the bruises he's gained from her supposedly 'friendly' reminders. "That was the first."

"Of course," she says, shrugging. "I'll ignore the fact that you're lying for the fact that I've distracted you for now."

"I guess you have," he agrees. Groaning, he stretches his back until it pops into all the right places. He watches a flock of spearow as they soar ahead, squawking loudly. He may hate to admit it, but he can understand why his sister wants to go off and explore everything. To get to see something with your own eyes, to know that no matter what happens, that memory of that moment in time is always going to be yours and yours alone… it's almost like that part of the world belongs only to you.

He's heard people mention that the best memories are those made with other people, but he's certain that the ones with the most beauty are those that happen from days upon days of hiking, lost in the wilds, only to find a waterfall when you've been thirsty for nearly two days.

Even if she does share that sentiment, it doesn't distract from the fact that she apparently keeps seeing dead legendaries wherever she goes. There has to be something there that is going on. In fact, he's certain that he's been told as much before, but it feels like it could have happened in a dream.

Even just thinking the word makes him yawn.

"Couldn't sleep?" Ali asks.

"I'm not sure," he says. He wants to ask her something, but he hesitates. As much as she acts like one of the guys, she is still a girl. The thought of saying the wrong thing and embarrassing himself in front of her seems mortifying. Even the idea of embarrassing himself in front of her leaves him rooted to the spot in fear.

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. Fear has never held him back when he's been exploring – he decides it's not about to do anything here either.

"Would it be weird if I told you I sometimes dreamed in colour?"

She looks at him in something like surprise. "Not really. Unless you're colour blind. You're not, are you?"

"I don't think I am." He shrugs and decides to lie down in the grass, staring up at the sky. The mid-morning warmth is just starting to break out, accompanied by a slight breeze. He looks over at the rustle in the grass and sees that Ali has followed his lead. "Sometimes, I dream in purple," he says.

"In purple? Okay, that bit seems a bit weird. Is there any reason why you're asking me this?"

He shrugs, even though he knows she can't see it. "Since you said you're studying psychology, I thought you might know something about it. Like, you'd be able to tell me if I'm able to go all crazy and run naked off a cliff or something."

She snorts a laugh. "That would be a medical first, I would have to say. Though personally… I don't think I've heard of anything like that. I think the closest thing I remember reading about involves psychics eating your dreams… you don't have a psychic with a purple aura, do you?"

He thinks about it for a moment. "No, at least I don't think so. Do you think that could be the cause of it?"

"That or you are actually crazy."

He laughs. "Thanks. I'm coming to you with all my problems from now on." He sighs and tucks his hands under his head. The sky is surprisingly empty for the time of day. Even with Annie hovering round on guard, he would have expected something to come near them on the ground. Instead, everything seems to be leaving them alone, strangely.

"Would it be totally wrong of me if I had one of my pokémon spy on my sister?"

Ali leans over. "In so many ways, yes." She sighs as she rubs at her temples with a hand. "But, I can understand why you would want to do that. After Sean did a runner on me, I considered it for a little while. I think with your sister though… her situation is a bit different, isn't it? Finding dead legends?"

He looks over to see her biting her lip. With her hair down, at that moment she seems so vulnerable, so human. It's strange to see her as anything but the confident girl that could probably break his arms without much effort.

"I'd say you wouldn't be totally in the wrong," she says. "But you'd have to be careful how you went about that. Maybe having it stalk her until the end of time isn't a good idea. Maybe just for a day or two – maybe even a week. Just so that you know she's alright.

"I can try to talk to her too, maybe get some answers out of her? It seems strange that she'd run off without telling one of us." She sighs. "We should have taken watches last night. We're getting too complacent with our pokémon."

He rubs the top of her arm. "It's not your fault." He leaves his hand there until she looks down at it. He snatches his hand back quickly and buries it in his hair. "I mean, she's always been stubborn like this. There's no way that even staying up on watch would have stopped her. Trust me, I know. She's my sister, after all."

He leaps to his feet. "Come on then. If I wanna send a tracker after her, I'm going to need to go to a centre somewhere. It's with a friend in Unova at the moment and the wifi here is non-existent."

"Just what is this tracker you've got?" Ali asks. "It's not something obvious like an arcanine, is it?"

"You'll see," he says, grinning. "The answer might surprise you."

**-O-O-O-**

Sometimes, he thinks that little sisters are secretly the most evil thing that could have ever been created. All these different fringe groups that he reads about, some worshipping one pokémon, others worshipping another; all of them agree that out there, the exists some version of the devil.

Jerry is convinced that the devil is his little sister in human form.

She looks up at him, grinning, her face covered in bright red and green paint. Even her hair is covered. Her dress, once white, now happens to be a menagerie of the various different colours she's been painting with.

Naturally, she happens to have painted all over his school project.

"Oh my god!" he screeches, rushing at her. No matter how much he tries, she continues to have some sort of demonic hold over his work. She sits on half of it, smothering herself with the papers, as if she knows just how much this project means to his grades. "What are you _doing_?"

"Your work wasn't pretty," she says, as if that makes perfect sense. She holds up her hands, covered in paint. "I made it pretty for you. Now you'll win!"

He groans and falls to the floor in front of her. Humming, she continues to paint over his work. "This is wrong," she says, holding up a piece of paper.

"Don't be stupid," he growls. First she paints over his work, then she has the cheek to call it wrong? "You're wrong."

"Nuh-uh!" she says, shaking her head. "This is wrong. People knew about legendaries all that time ago! They just didn't know how to describe them with our words. _Duh_."

He sighs. "Look, this is my project, not yours. I'm the one that researched about legendary pokémon, not you. You're _three,_ what do you even know about it anyway?"

She shrugs and lets the paper drop back to the floor. Thankfully, she's only painted in the kitchen – so far as he can see. Their parents would go crazy if they found out she'd painted on the carpets in the living room.

"I saw paintings," she says. "My school trip. My teacher said I was wrong, but she _smells_ so she doesn't know anything. We went to the museum, Jerry. They had paintings!" Her entire face lights up, like she's just been told it's Christmas tomorrow. "One of them looked like that," she says, pointing to his work.

The only thing she hasn't painted over is his scribble of Dialga, the Sinnoan legend of time. He moves to sit down beside her and holds up the picture so they can both see.

"They had a picture of this?" he asks, doubtful.

"Uh-huh!" She nods so quickly her hair falls into her face and becomes stuck on the paint on her cheeks. "I can show you!"

"We can't go to the museum," he sighs.

"Why?"

"Because it's three towns over and I don't know how to get there."

"Why?"

He groans. "Because we can't."

She hesitates, as if trying to understand this new information. Then she asks again, "Why?"

"Because you ruined my work!" he screams, throwing it into the air.

Instantly, her face falls. He can see the changes and knows what's coming before it even happens. Her face turns bright red. Her eyes fill with tears.

Then, "_Daddy!"_

The wailing sound seems to pierce his ears. Three seconds later, their dad runs into the room, pale and worried. He sees the mess on the floor and instantly he looks at Jerry.

"It wasn't me," he says, but he gets drowned out by the sounds of screeching little sister.

Naturally, the moment their dad picks her up, he fixes Jerry with a pointed look. "Clear this up," he says, pointing to the mess. He sighs as the devil continues to scream in his ear. He runs a hand over her hair as he attempts to calm her down.

"I'll help you re-write it, don't worry," he says. "Just help?"

Jerry nods and picks up the remains of his work. Everything goes in the bin, save for the one picture of Dialga that she hasn't painted over. He keeps it in the back of his bag for so long that he eventually forgets it's even there.

Then six months later, he visits the museum with his school. Once there, he finds that somehow, she was right all along.

**-O-O-O-**

The pokémon stares at him with an unnatural, unmoving face. At a passing glance, it could almost seem human, if it were not for the golden shine.

"Hi, Roger," he says to the pokémon. It continues to float in front of him, wordless, expressionless.

He feels Ali's hands on his shoulders as she leans over to see the pokémon. "This is your friend?" she asks, surprise in her voice. "I didn't think that you'd be sending this to spy on her." She lets go, shuddering. "If I found that watching me, I'm pretty sure I'd scream so loud you'd hear me back in Kanto."

"It'll be fine," Jerry says, even though he's certain his voice betrays his disbelief. "Roger, I need you to do me a favour. My little sister is staying with Grandma right now – you remember her, right? Her victreebel tried to eat you."

The shadows behind the mask seem to move, just a little. He takes it as a good sign.

"Anyway, my sister will be there too. Somehow, she's managed to scramble her psychic signal, or at least, that's what Annie said. So I need you to follow her, just to make sure she's safe. Don't let her see you – knowing her, she'll try and catch you and then that'll be several different levels of awkward."

The pokémon bobs its mask once, then vanishes in a puff of smoke. Jerry coughs and waves the acrid smelling smoke away, sending out a silent prayer that maybe she won't notice his pokémon following her. Given her lack of awareness to most things, most of the time, it might serve to his benefit for once.

"So I have to ask," Ali says slowly, "what prompted you to name a yamask Roger?"

"That's his name," Jerry says. "He's shy – especially around girls. He won't even talk via telepathy."

"That's a new one."

He nods his agreement. Really, it was a stupid decision to call the yamask to him in the middle of a pokémon centre waiting room – even if the only other person nearby happens to be the woman working on reception. The large red sofas are covered in cuts and bruises from past travellers and machinery hums in the background, but otherwise they are the closest to alone that Jerry could get them.

"So," Ali says, leaning back on the sofa, "what's the real reason why we're here? I'm not stupid. You could have called that yamask to you anywhere – why did you decide we had to stop off at the pokémon centre next to Tohjo Falls just for this?"

"I needed to talk to you," he says, standing. "Follow me? We need the computer room."

"Okay?" she says, standing to follow. The signs point them past the canteen, where he can see only three other trainers sat at the tables, their teams out around them as they eat. The computer room is empty when they arrive – the lights take nearly a minute to register the fact that there actually happens to be life in the room.

Jerry chooses a computer near the far corner of the room and checks to make certain it works. Ali sits down on the computer beside him, next to the window. She pulls up her legs so that she sits cross-legged on the chair, though she has to pull on the table in order to move her chair across the floor.

"We had an argument before she left," Jerry says, eager to start the conversation. He opens up the relevant internet pages, his attention on the computer, even as he speaks. "I… I got annoyed with her when I found out how stupid she's being about this whole thing."

"You're not talking about the badges thing, are you? It's the _other _thing."

He nods. "We might not have believed her before, but we all saw the… _keldeo _that day. I know we haven't spoken about it much since…"

"I know," she agrees, clicking random websites on her own computer. "It's… it's not exactly something we can openly discuss, is it? I'm just surprised no one has found us yet. Look at what happened to all the other people who went to the news about stuff like this."

He grunts in agreement. Every person that has ever reported witnessing a legendary has vanished, never to return again. Even the Heroes – the ones who helped save the regions and helped in bringing the organised crime families and terrorist groups to their knees have vanished. The excuse of being lost whilst training on Mount Silver might work once, but three times, complete with similar stories about the other people? Either something strange is going on that people aren't allowed to know about, or there is something _worse_ happening that people aren't to know about.

"That's the part I'm worried about though," he confesses. He realises he's opened pages about legendary sightings and quickly shuts them down again. "I would have thought by now that someone would have found us. Given how quickly they found my parents and my sister's friend, they're obviously not incompetent. Then there were the guys in Saffron when we were staying there – the ones found with glowing purple arrows in their chests."

"So what are you thinking?" Ali whispers. "Someone's got our backs?"

"Maybe. I know my sister has that hypno that follows her, but I don't think that she'd keep it around if she knew it was murdering people." He sighs. "It's half the reason why I sent Roger after her – in the hopes that he might spot something we haven't so far. Because I might be happy about the fact that apparently someone is looking out for us…"

"But obviously we have to ask what they want," Ali finishes. She groans and leans back in her chair, burying her face in her hands. "This is all too much. After everything happened in Eterna, I was glad for the relative monotony of training in Saffron. I didn't set out on a trainer journey to be one of those kids of legend that helps to save the world. I just wanted to see the world and make a few life-long friends."

"I think that's half the problem," Jerry says. He slides his backpack from his back to the floor and begins to rummage through it. "She's treating this as if it were nothing but a normal trainer journey. I know my sister. If there was any other situation where she had been told that legends were dying and there was one person connected to all of it, she would be in the library from morning to night, reading as much as she could about it. Instead apparently she hasn't bothered with it. She's trying to distract herself with training."

"Don't be too harsh on her," Ali says. "I can understand why she might want the distraction. Hell, I can understand why she might not be able to balance things that well." She sighs and stares at the ceiling. "I've realised that this whole studying-while-travelling thing is harder than I thought it was going to be. At first, I thought it would be easy. Best of both worlds, right? Train my mind, train my body. Except, it's a lot more difficult than that. Having a routine when I was training let me see just how far I'm falling behind."

Jerry doesn't understand why he feels butterflies swirling in his stomach. "What are you trying to say?"

She shrugs. "I'm not giving up… but this isn't an endless journey for me any more. I'm going to get the badges from Kanto, challenge the league and see how well I do. Then I'm going to find somewhere that I can settle for a while, have a routine that lets my pokémon train and properly study for my qualifications. I don't want to be some half-assed psychiatrist that the news goes to when they want some idiot with a few letters after their name to say exactly what they want to hear. I want…" She cracks a smile. "I want to be the very best, like no one ever was."

Despite himself, Jerry laughs.

"What about you?" she asks.

He pulls a folder out of his bag, filled to the point of spilling with pieces of paper and leaflets. The sound it makes when it hits the desk reminds him of pokémon causing miniature earthquakes.

"I've been doing this," he says, opening the folder. The first page is his rough contents, filled with scribbles and tiny pieces of writing that even he can no longer decipher.

"That's… a lot," Ali says.

"From the moment I realised that she wasn't lying, I've been trying to find out everything I can about what's happening," he says. "It's why I was so surprised when she said that she'd done nothing – I thought that she would have had at least double this and we could have compared notes. I just feel like she isn't taking this seriously."

Ali pulls a loose sheet of paper out and begins to read through it. "I'd say you're taking this seriously enough for all three of us."

"Maybe," he says, taking the sheet back. Ever since the fiasco with his school project when he was eight, letting other people handle his work is a sore spot. "But I'm worried about her. Almost every reference I've found to anything like this always involves the human witnessing it dying. What I really need is like a pokémon version of the bible. If the human version includes two witnesses, then maybe the pokémon one would do too, right?"

Ali's face falls. "You're comparing your research with the bible now?"

He shrugs. "I'm looking at all possible avenues. I'm _terrified,_ okay? She's my little sister and I'm meant to protect her, but there's nothing I can do other than read through pieces of paper and hope to hell that I'm even reading the right thing.

"But this isn't what I'm going to do with my life," he says, closing the folder. "I'm going to get all the badges I can. I'm going to become the strongest trainer that the world has ever seen. Then I'm going to go to all these horrible places that are stepped in mythology – Cerulean Cave, the Origin Cluster – and I'm going to find out exactly what's happening from the source."

He closes his eyes and prepares himself for the gasp and the admonishment that are sure to follow. Instead, he feels a hand close around his. He opens his eyes to see Ali's jaw trembling, though she wears a smile on her face.

"That's a lovely sentiment," she says. "And she's lucky to have you. But what if that doesn't happen?"

"I'll make it happen," he says, confident. "The whole training for a real world job? Unless she starts struggling with mortgage repayments or creates her own business, I don't think that me knowing a few numbers will help her. At least this way I can combine what I like doing with what I need to do."

He pats the folder. "The first step is that I'm going to make sure she gets a copy of this. I've got friends that know their ways around the email systems. I'll have one of them email her a scanned copy of all of this work, anonymously. Maybe having the legwork done for her will make sure that she starts actually paying attention to what's happening around her."

"And you're sure she won't realise it's from you?"

"My friend interned for Box-creating-Bill for a little while," he confides. What she doesn't need to know is that said internship only lasted for a day. "He'll know what to do."

Ali reaches out to look at the folder. Reluctantly, he pulls away his hand to let her look inside. "You've done a lot of work already," she says, flicking through the countless pages. "So I have to ask the obvious; why are you sharing all of this with me?"

"Because you're the only person that understands," he says. "If I went to any of my other friends, they'd all think that I was making this up for a big prank somehow. You've seen everything with your own eyes… if anything ever happened to me, you're the only other person I trust to look after my sister."

Her mouth drops open just slightly. "Not even your parents?"

He shakes his head. "My mum used to be really close with her brother. When he died, it was almost like she was broken for a month. I don't want to experience that pain for myself, which is why I'm so adamant about protecting her. But if something ever did happen to me, I think it would take longer than a month for my mum to recover. I don't even know about my dad, but he's always been sort of… bumbling, in regards to my sister."

"I guess I've got no choice then," Ali says, laughing. He can hear the way she forces the laugh, as if to make light of the entire situation. He simply smiles and lets her pretend that he believes her laughter.

They're the only ones that can protect her. Jerry is confident of that much. Though his little sister might decide to run away and do whatever she pleases, he promises himself that no matter the cost, he'll make sure that he can do everything in his power to protect her – even if it means spending a year in the Cluster, hunting everything there to extinction, just so that they'll never be able to hurt her.

**-O-O-O-**

Every year he comes back home, something else has changed.

This time, his dad has half the hair he did only three months ago.

"Hey there kiddo," he says, punching Jerry on the shoulder. "Good to see you."

"And you, Dad." He hugs him briefly before stepping around him to enter the house. When he sees the decorations, his eyes widen despite himself. They've gone all out this time. Banners hang from the ceiling. The hallway is lined with pictures of their mother, almost in chronological order from birth to her current age. It seems like they've put out one for every year that she's been alive.

Given that they span the length of the hallway, he's certain that she's going to see that and moan about how old she's gotten.

"Your mother will be pleased to see you," his dad says, shutting the door behind them. "Want anything to drink? How's training anyway? Met any nice girls?"

He groans and remembers just why he decides to stay away for months at a time. "Water, fine and I'm not telling you, Dad."

His dad laughs. "Alright, alright. Can't blame your old man for trying. Your sister's in the living room decorating your mother's cake. Pop in and say hi – I haven't told her that you were coming today either."

"Alright," he says, removing his backpack and dropping it to the floor besides the pile of shoes. He looks into the mirror hanging on the hallway wall and sees that puberty has rewarded him with another spot – this one almost perfectly in the middle of his forehead. No matter how much he tries to squeeze it, apparently it isn't formed enough to pop.

"_Great_," he moans to the empty hall, "another year of photos with my spotty face."

He pulls down his hair in an attempt to cover the spot instead. The living room door behind him is shut, though he can already hear his sister's attempts of singing. It almost sounds like she's in mortal pain.

He opens the door to find what seems to be the remains of a hurricane. Streamers, glitter and confetti have been thrown over the floor. Discarded pieces of wrapping paper covered in tape have been thrown throughout the room. The cake, remarkably, is all in one piece on the coffee table. It looks like it might have been chocolate at one point – though his sister has apparently decided to decorate it with every colour that she can possibly find.

Some things never change – her artistic talent can still be summed up as 'missing and presumed dead'.

"Oh," she gasps, quickly moving as if to hide the cake. "You're not meant to see this! Or the mess!" She turns, obviously expecting their mother to be stood in the doorway. Instead, when she sees him stood there, Jerry sees the way her mouth drops open and then her entire face lights up.

"_Jerry_!" she screams, leaping to her feet. She throws herself at him with enough force to make him stumble back a step. He laughs as she squeezes him, even though he knows that his coat is now covered in several different shades of icing.

"When did you get back?" she asks, smiling up at him. "Where have you been? Did you bring me anything?"

He laughs and pats her head. "Today, training. And of course I brought you something." He messes up her hair before pulling her arms away. "But you've got to wait to get those presents. Today isn't about you, after all."

"Alright," she says, pouting. "Come see what I've done!" She grabs his hand and pulls him towards the coffee table and her… _creation_.

"That's me," she says, pointing to what could have been a stick figure, "and that's Mum and Dad. And now you're here, I can draw you too!"

She picks up a bag of icing and squeezes it so hard that it explodes across the once-red carpets. She looks down at the mess, biting a finger. "Oops," she says.

Jerry laughs. Some things definitely do not change. "It's alright. You keep drawing, alright? I'll clean that up for you."

"No, it's okay," she says, handing him the anorexic-looking icing bag. "I'll let you draw, okay? I'll clean up the mess."

Apparently though, some things do change. Bemused by the fact she actually offered to clean, Jerry complies with drawing a quick stick figure on the cake to appease her. By the time he's done, she's still trying to clean the mess on the floor – and apparently only making it worse.

"Hey," he says, picking up the cake. "What do you think?"

He holds the cake out for her to look at. His drawing is frankly, almost worse than hers – even he can see as much.

Of course, the moment she tries to pull his arms down so that she can get a better look, he loses his balance and drops the cake on the floor.

It lands with a muted thud. Both of them stare at the cake for what feels like an eternity as they wait for their brains to catch up with reality.

"Oh, shit," Jerry squeaks. He flinches as soon as the words leave his mouth, expecting his doduo-come-dodrio to appear out of nowhere and start attacking him for cursing.

His sister bursts into a fit of giggles not a second later. "Doofus!" she cries, still laughing.

He tries to pick up the cake, but it's so soft that it squishes in his hands and half of it stays glued to the floor. Seeing that only makes his sister laugh even more.

Jerry can't help but join in with the laughter. Of course he would come back and make the disaster zone even worse.

"You're so stupid," she says, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands. "It's okay though." She bounces to her feet and pats his head. "Don't worry about the cake. Dad bought another one anyway because he thought I was going to break this one. He thinks I don't know about the spare cake, but he doesn't hide most things well."

She takes the cake from his hands and squeezes it between her own hands, smothering it all over her fingers.

"What are you doing?" he gasps, reaching for her arms to stop her.

"Making it look like I did this," she says, rolling her eyes. "_Duh_." She drops the remains of the cake on the carpet and begins to laugh again. "It really looks like a big poop."

He snorts a laugh. "It does."

She looks up and grins at him. "Don't worry, I'll tell Dad that I did it. He won't be as mad with me. You just make it look like you were trying to clean it up, okay?"

She pats his head again, smearing chocolate over his hair. He groans when he realises just how much worse that will make the spots on his face.

"You're my big brother," she says, smiling at him, "so that means I have to protect you, okay? So look all innocent and like you're annoyed with me."

"Okay," he says slowly, surprised at this turn of events. What happened to the spoilt, stubborn little girl that would run to Daddy whenever she never got her way? He's heard that girls are meant to mature faster, but this is just insane. "But… why are you doing this?"

"Because you're my big brother, silly," she says, as if that's the only explanation she needs. "So I'll take care of you. Always." She grins and smears chocolate over his nose. "Because I am the bestest little sister there ever was. And really, who else is going to look after you? You're all spotty and gross."

He groans and attempts to hide the spot from view. "I thought you were meant to protect me? Bullying me doesn't count as protecting me."

She laughs. "Only I'm allowed to bully you, silly. That's what little sisters are for."


	32. Mountains of Silver

_Diary,_

_I ventured towards the east and encountered a Power Plant. It was old, disused and home to a being of power I had not thought would have been achievable living in such a location._

_It fled before I could converse with it. The memories of the place still cling to its walls, like they wish to tell the story of how they were abandoned. A single, battered notice hangs in the doorway, warning travellers off, promising restoration works that should have begun three years ago._

_I compare it to the Lagoon City and find myself wondering… who is at fault for letting the world fall to such a state? Humanity or pokémon?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Mountains of Silver|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

Before I started on this journey, I never really had much idea of what really happened with trainers, with gym leaders or anything to do with them. However, I'm pretty sure that if I was ever told that a gym leader would abandon you in the middle of _Mount Silver_ as part of a test, I would believe it to be nothing more than a pack of lies.

Of course, now I happen to discover that it's all very possible. In fact, I'm living it.

I sigh as I look around and the remains of the campsite and wince. Maybe I shouldn't have thrown such a tantrum. The pots and pans are thrown everywhere. The tent is more ruined than it was before. I'm pretty sure it even looks like I've started throwing pieces of warm charcoal around, judging by the way that the grass around them slowly seems to be withering away and dying.

I look at my hands and try to wipe away the charcoal stains. Seeing them there just reminds me of Craig – of how I've failed to try and find him. I promised myself that I'd find him, that I'd discover him somewhere in this big world, he'd be still alive and then we'd both go home and pretend this had never happened.

The poké balls in my pockets tell another story. They remind me that no matter what's happened, I can't ever go back and pretend. The ruins of the campsite seems to hammer the point home for me. It's never going to go back to the way it was. Craig is probably dead by now – if he wasn't already. Diz seems to think he's keeping the creepy government people sidetracked from me which is something, but I can't rely on him forever.

I grab a notepad out of my bag and start writing it down. It feels like the millionth time I've thought these thoughts, but hopefully now that they're written down in my scratchy handwriting I'll actually be able to pay attention to them.

Almost as an afterthought, I let out Mandy and Kiki. Mandy sits on my shoulder and watches me write as Kiki looms over our campsite, watching for anything that might be coming our way. Stupid really, that I've left it so long before I thought of something like that.

I add '_stop being such a moron'_ to the list, underline it a few times and then circle it. When I'm finished I hold out my arm to look at my list. Honestly, it looks a little short, but I think it's something towards progress. Plus it's vague enough for me to play around with some parts of it.

_Step One; Learn everything I need to about everything._

_Step Two; Make sure my pokémon are the strongest they can possibly be._

_Step Three; Get all the badges I need and get into Anville._

_Step Four; Become as awesome as Cynthia._

_Step Five; __**STOP BEING SUCH A MORON**_.

I kinda feel like I need more there, but it seems enough for now. Tucking my notepad back in my bag, I realise that whatever I'm doing here has to have a reason – even if Falkner must be backwards in the head to make his test _here_ of all places.

He must want me to do something whilst I'm up here. I don't think that he would have invested the time and effort into making a fake-destroyed campsite only to just leave me here with the whole test of just surviving for a few days.

Sighing, I turn around and start to investigate the campsite. The discarded remains of the tent reveal nothing, as do the relatively new pots and pans – though I keep them just because if he's left me here, I'm going to take everything I can as some sort of compensation or something.

Kiki stalks after me like some sort of sentient, tangible shadow as I continue to investigate. Mandy continues to sit on my shoulder, offering nothing in the way of help.

Predictably, whatever I need to find isn't that easy to locate – if there is anything to find at all.

When I collapse down in front of the extinguished campfire with the hopes of starting it, something strange catches my eye. Either I'm going crazy or there's actually writing on one of the stones here. I can't read what it says because I don't speak two-thousand year old dead language, but it definitely says something.

I shake it and hear something rattle inside. With no other choice, I hand it over to Kiki and she smashes it in two pieces.

Inside is a tiny little tape recorder. That definitely wasn't around two thousand years ago.

I take it back off her and stop myself before I play it. What if it has some sort of super-secret signal that attracts all the wild pokémon in a certain radius? What if they all start hunting me and I have to spend the next few days running because the skies are full of hungry fearow and the ground is filled with ravenous onix?

"What do you think?" I ask Kiki. She shrugs and turns away, pretending not to look at me. Of course I totally believe that she has no opinion on this. It's not like she's ever helped me by making a decision before. Honestly, I don't know what's wrong with her. Present her with the option to – as far as we're aware – blow us all up and she's all for it. Play a mystery tape recording and she doesn't care?

"Mandy?" I ask. She just squawks and takes flight, circling around us. Apparently my pokémon like being super useful.

Maybe it's just because they know I'll be able to do this one on my own. That or Kiki really is just homicidal. If that even can apply for pokémon, I mean, I always thought homicidal was killing something that's the same as you, but I guess it might apply because humans are _homo sapiens_ and she's a pokémon and –

- I really need to work on this whole getting distracted thing. Maybe I should add it to the list.

I take a breath and press the play button. The tape recorder makes a funny sound as it tries to locate the start of the tape – it almost sounds like the chattering of two weedle.

Finally the squeaking stops and I hear a beep echo from the recorder.

"If you're hearing this, then I can congratulate you on passing part one of your test," Falkner's voice echoes out of the tape recorder. Hearing him just makes me angry and I want to feed the tape recorder to the nearest pokémon and pretend that it's actually munching away at him, but I guess I have to keep the recorder just in case.

"This was to judge your observational skills. By placing this tape recorder in a fire-proof storage device that resembled charcoal, I wanted to see if you had the attention to detail necessary to succeed in a world where every little detail can be the difference between disproving current theories or revolutionising the world of history.

"Of course," tape-Falkner says, laughing, "you could have also discovered this entirely by accident. In which case, I cannot say much bad, other than that I wish the world as a whole had your luck.

"Regardless, we will test this with phase two of your challenge. You will have noticed that you have been placed in an unfamiliar location, on the dangerous territory of Mount Silver. Rest assured that you are in one of the safer areas – though the wild pokémon you may encounter are still far more dangerous than those you may encounter in more central locations. Your challenge now is to investigate the campsite. As you can see, the owner of said campsite is missing.

"You are to determine how the camp owner disappeared. Were they taken by pokémon? Did they get lost whilst looking for food? Or did they, perhaps, get attacked by another trainer? In this phase of the test, there is no right or wrong answer. As much of what we know about history is based upon archaeological evidence, I ask a similar question of you here. Look around, form your opinion and make an educated decision, based on what you already know.

"Etched on the tape recorder are a series of coordinates. Place these into your pokédex and proceed to the location in question for the next phase of your test."

The beeping sound erupts from the tape recorder again. I sigh and slip it into my pocket. Falkner sure can talk a lot about something pretty simple really. Look around, decide what attacked the camp and then let him know. If there's no right or wrong answer I can just say aliens did it just to spite him for leaving me here.

I get the feeling that even though there's no right or wrong answer, I can still somehow really disappoint him with an answer I give.

I look at Kiki and get no help from her. Shrugging, I look back at the fireplace for clues. Most of the charcoal seems to have burnt away into little ash-grey lumps. That means that whoever was here ended up letting their fire burn out. Charcoal means that they came prepared, rather than using nearby trees and stuff for firewood. So if they were prepared enough to bring stuff for a fire, it would mean that they were here for something in particular.

It would also mean that they wouldn't have just wandered off and forgotten about their camp unless they had no choice, or unless they'd planned to abandon it. Since I don't think anyone has ever really done the latter, it means that something has chased them away.

I stand, frowning, trying to recall everything Pascal taught me in Viridian Forest. It's pretty pointless to look for tracks where someone might have escaped, considering that we flew in here and probably damaged a lot – not counting me having a tantrum when Falkner flew away.

When he comes back, I'm so feeding him to his prize salamence.

The peaks of Mount Silver rise up in the north-east. That means if the person in question had any sense, they would have gone in the opposite direction to try and avoid wild pokémon.

"What do you think?" I ask Kiki. "Did they get chased out of here by something, or is this all just stupid and should we give up?"

She gives me a dark look that could mean anything – but nothing good.

"Right," I sigh, looking away. "Okay, the tent got shredded, so that means whatever attacked him was here in the camp." I walk up to the remains of the tent and pick up a few pieces. From what I can see, the fabric has been shredded. "I don't think there's much that would attack a camp around here. Maybe an ursaring? That seems the most obvious."

Again, Kiki makes a sound that can mean nothing helpful.

"I should have put that collar on your and dressed you in daisies," I mutter. She responds by firing a needle at the piece of tent in my hands. It flies from my hands and ends up pinned to a tree about ten feet away from me.

I can't even be angry at that. Obviously all the training I put them through has to be paying off.

"Ursaring like forests," I say, going with this theory for now. If I'm wrong, then I can just backtrack a little later. "But that means they'd have chased him _away_ from the forest because they're solo hunters and they don't attack in packs. So we have to go closer to Mount Silver."

I look at my pokédex, where I've put in the coordinates Falkner's tape recorder left with me. Sure enough, they're closer to Mount Silver. I grin to myself, hopeful that I'm on the right path.

Maybe while I'm here I can capture some sort of massively powerful pokémon. Out of curiosity, I load up the pokémon hunter's website that Pascal showed me. There's a few bounties out for specific pokémon that are apparently attacking people repeatedly – I think I'll stick well clear of the onix that _ate_ some man's feraligatr _whole_ – and instead I just look around to see what people are paying for pokémon that I can catch nearby.

"We should train whilst we're here," I tell Kiki. "Or at least try and take on one of the weaker pokémon. It might show us how much training we need to do."

I look again at my dex and see the amount of new emails that have piled up, offering me new pokémon hunts to take part on and all the different, highly-sought after jobs that people are advertising – most of them seem to be around the Lake of Rage, signed by some person called V. At the very top of the list is an email from an unknown sender.

The strange thing is that it's sent to an email address that I only created so I could play a stupid online game. I didn't think anyone even knew it existed – I know I forget it does, even though it's synced to my phone.

The fact that it has an attachment makes me dubious about opening it. Even so, the fact that its tagline has my brother's full name makes me interested and a little worried. What if Diz is controlling him somehow and this is the only way he can let me know?

I open up the email, only to see that my connection is too poor to see anything inside. Instead I just flag it to be read later and look back up at Kiki. Her face is almost directly in mine. I leap back, shrieking, only to find her _laughing_ at my shock.

"So not nice," I mutter, looking away. I sit down on the ground, staring at my pokédex as I try to think of what to do. I could follow after everything that Falkner is saying, but what if there's more to it? He wouldn't just make me do this for no reason at all – and there's not exactly a website dedicated to people saying about how they got into Anville, even though I've tried to look.

I open up the internet on my pokédex and start searching through disappearances in Mount Silver. Most of them are trainers _way_ older than me that are then found dead a few weeks later. There's only three cases of missing people that are still unsolved – two of them are twins of some celebrity who moved out to Mount Silver to escape the media and of course, the most infamous disappearance of all.

Could Falkner really have me here just to try and help find out things about Red? I mean, he vanished like _years_ ago and no one has ever found a trace. He has to be dead by now.

Yet it's like modern history's biggest thing. Where could the champion have vanished to? Unlike the heroes from all the other countries, he's the one that almost singlehandedly managed to take down the Rockets. With the help of two of his childhood friends they travelled round Kanto, obliterating the Rockets' bases and taking them apart piece by piece in a really bloody war.

Maybe it's a good thing he's never been found.

I open up the maps app on my dex and start plotting a course. Apparently he was last seen in the depths of Mount Silver – but how can they call it the depths when he was apparently at the very top? These newspaper reports are way too confusing.

A noctowl in a tree hoots at me, its eyes big and red as it watches me. I stare up at it, wondering if it might try to shriek and hypnotise me or something like that when it spreads its wings and flies off somewhere in the distance.

I sigh and pick up the final remains of the camp. I have no idea what time it is, but something in the back of my head tells me that I shouldn't go around searching whilst I'm not sure about where I am or what I'm doing – even less so in Mount Silver.

"We're going to camp here today," I tell Kiki. From above, Mandy squawks and continues to settle. I look up, wondering if she means anything by it, but instead she continues to weave between the trees as if it's the best form of entertainment.

I let out Duke and have him wander around nearby, keeping an eye out. As much as I would like Cassie to be here too, I just can't let her run around when there's too many things out here that could eat her like a little chocolate button.

"We're staying here for a bit," I tell Duke.

He questions it, naturally. I groan and instead try to teach him how to set up a tent.

If nothing else, trying to teach Duke tells me that I should so never, ever become a teacher.

**-O-O-O-**

By the time dawn comes, I've already packed up my tent and I'm heading towards the looming peaks of Mount Silver. Mandy flaps in the sky above me, showing no sort of tiredness, even though I'm pretty sure she was awake all night and terrorising the local wildlife.

I'm also not sure how the dead doduo turned up near our camp, but it was a deciding factor in leaving as early as possible. That thing had been torn apart by big teeth and it's not like any pokémon I have could have done such a thing. So either Mandy or Kiki managed to hypnotise the local pokémon into attacking stuff for them – which wouldn't surprise me – or there was something big and nasty that came near out camp. Or worse, Mandy stole it from something big and nasty.

I look up at the sky and see a flock of birds soaring around, far higher than Mandy can reach. I check my pokédex and see that whatever they are, they're not local to Mount Silver.

Falkner, I might be only ten, but I'm not _stupid._ I know that you're keeping the weird, crazy pokémon away from me somehow. Otherwise I'd have been torn to shreds in the night or something.

I huff, unsure whether to be offended or grateful that he's helping out. Either way, there isn't much that I can do about it.

I brush weeds away from my face, annoyed that even they are taller than me. Mandy, apparently sensing my irritation, cackles from above.

The plants seem to grow closer around me. I let out Kiki and notice that they don't move away from her, which means that it has to all be in my head. If they were pokémon, then they'd move away when they sense another plant pokémon nearby.

Or at least, that's what I tell myself. I'm honestly not sure if that's true.

Kiki grunts and moves in front of me to take care of all the overgrown plants. I shrug and let her continue as Mandy descends and sits on my shoulders. She trills in my ear and starts nipping at my hair, apparently deciding that I need a haircut.

Wherever we're going, Kiki seems to know the way. I keep an eye out for anything that tries to come close, but as it turns out there's nothing that wants to bother with us. It's more than a little bit worrying.

Falkner could have cleared out the area, maybe, but it could also mean that there's something bigger out there and hunting everything.

The mountain seems to get closer and closer, almost impossibly quickly. When Kiki pushes away the remains of a fallen over tree, I see that there's something like a tunnel hidden behind it. Kiki grunts and points inside. I can see something like little fireflies glowing in the darkness of the caves.

"What do you guys think?" I ask, looking at my pokémon. When they give the equivalent of a shrug, I grab my pokédex and see how far away I am from the coordinates that Falkner left for me. As it turns out, I'm quite a distance from them, but that just makes me grin a little to myself.

That'll show him for ditching me out here. Jerk. Maybe he's helping me out and trying to make sure I'm not in any danger, but then I can just make him actually work for it.

I get the mental picture of my parents hovering over me, lecturing me about how I shouldn't make things more difficult to people to look after me.

I sigh and try to wave the thoughts away. It doesn't do much to help. Kiki and Mandy both look at me like I'm possessed. "Don't worry," I tell them. "I just didn't want to think about something."

It doesn't seem to make them feel any better, apparently. I shake my head. "Let's just go into the cave thing then."

Vines dangle from the roof of the cave. Little luminous lights are wrapped up in the vines, making them seem almost like Christmas decorations. A few large boulders sit on the ground, the glowing vines apparently just lazily dropped over them It's almost pretty – aside from the fact that it also happens to house insanely strong pokémon that might kill me just because I wander too near to their territory.

I stop myself from brushing one of the vines with my hand. _This is a stupid idea,_ I tell myself. Everyone knows the horror stories about Mount Silver and all the horrible, deadly places. The fact that you need like a _gazillion_ badges to even be considered to gain access to it kinda says how tough it is.

Maybe walking in there isn't the best idea. But Falkner's thinking he's being all stealthy by keeping all the pokémon away from me, so at least I have some protection.

_But if it's meant to be so hard to gain access, how comes this tunnel is wide open?_

"Mandy?" I say slowly, backing up against one of the cave walls. "You don't sense any dead people near here, do you?"

She looks at me, tilting her head so far to the side that I'm sure she must end up dizzy. Cawing, she flaps her wings, does a quick circle around me and lands back on my shoulder gently, nipping little pieces of my hair.

I take that to mean there isn't anyone dead nearby. It doesn't reassure me as much as I thought it would. If the cave was meant to be guarded and the people were dead, that would explain things – though it'd make more questions. Since they're just _not here_, that means either someone doesn't know about this entrance, or they've gotten lost or sidetracked.

The moment one of the boulders _moves_ is enough to make me scream so loudly it echoes back to me three times as loud.

The boulder – a _graveller_ – grunts as it turns to us, glowing vines still wrapped around its body. It moves slowly, angry face staring down at us. Kiki's the first to react. The cave floor erupts into life. Weeds burst free from the ground. Thick, pulsing roots strike from the ground and slam into the graveller's face. Before it can moan in pain, Kiki races towards it and slams her glowing claws down on its head again and again _and again_ until it finally moans and just collapses on the floor.

My heart is hammering in my chest. I don't even know if Kiki's killed it or what. All I know is that I _really_ should know to pay attention to these things by now – especially after everything with the ariados.

I don't know why, but I tap a poké ball against the graveller as we walk past it. The ball closes without any protest at all and a little congratulatory tone echoes from my pokédex. I have the brief panic of trying to find it and shut it off before I start to wonder just what I should change the tone to.

Kiki watches me like I might break at any moment. When I meet her eyes, she points further into the cave, the question obvious on her face. By the way Mandy is nipping at my ear, I think that she's asking the same thing.

"We'll go in a little," I say as I put the graveller in my bag, swapping it for a flashlight I don't even remember chucking in there. "There should be someone guarding this entrance anyway." I lower my voice until I'm certain that only they can hear me. The last thing I need is an angry golem rolling after me. Pascal's advice about only capturing pokémon I'm sure don't have families to care for or anything that will come after them rings in my head.

I move the graveller from my bag to my back pocket. If something comes after me for it, they can have it back. I can't really think of much I can do with a graveller anyway. Mostly I can just picture trying to train it and then it sits on me and all that's left of me is a little squished puddle of blood and squashed bones.

I shake my head to clear it and switch on the flashlight. It's strong enough that it pretty much illuminates the cave. I'm sure I've used it before, but for the life of me I just can't seem to remember when or where.

Mandy trills in my ear and continues to nip at my hair. I reach up reflexively and brush my fingers down her feathers.

_If we just go straight, we shouldn't get lost_. I follow after Kiki, drawing lazy circles over the walls with my flashlight as we go. I can picture the walls filled with ancient drawings of pokémon and people, showing all sorts of stuff that we've forgotten about or just never discovered.

_How much stuff haven't we found because of really strong pokémon?_

Then again, I guess there's also a bunch of stuff we've only found because of them. I guess that not everyone who wants to study history is as strong as Cynthia – if everyone was like her, then we'd have no trouble at all finding out everything we wanted to.

I look up and see that the glowing vines have all but disappeared. Kiki's eyes are like a void of light in the beacon of my torch. Even though she's my pokémon, seeing it still sends a shiver down my spine. When I strain my ears, I hear nothing but the dripping of water. I can't believe the tales of Mount Silver connect to this place. It's just… _quiet._

Some part of my brain stops me from saying just how quiet it is. That never ends well in the movies. Instead I just run my fingers over Mandy again and walk a bit closer to Kiki. My footsteps echo in the expansive nothingness. Kiki wraps a claw around my wrist to make sure that I don't fall over in the relative darkness.

I expect to find zubat suddenly fluttering down and attacking. Nothing happens. I picture a thousand eyes hanging in the darkness from the ceiling, waiting and watching, about to strike. When I look up, bare rock greets me.

"I don't like this," I mutter. I wipe my nose and have to blink my eyes as they begin to fill with tears. It feels like I've been cutting onions. Kiki hisses something that I don't understand as she leads me down a sharp turning I hadn't noticed.

She pulls me so quickly that I lose my balance. I hit the floor hard, the flashlight rolls out of my other hand. I yelp as Mandy takes off, chasing after the light. Kiki stays by my side, protective.

I groan as I get back up, blowing on my stinging palms. They have to be shredded into pieces now. Images of pokémon sensing my blood and chasing after me run through my brain. I hear Mandy caw and see the light as it's brought back towards me, like an eerie spotlight chasing after me.

"Thanks," I whisper, cradling it close. Without it, I'm blind. "Okay," I say, pushing myself to my feet. I try to look at the way that Kiki took me but it all looks the same. When I ask her how we got here, she gives me a blank look that is everything but helpful.

The compass on my pokédex seems to think that there's three norths. "Brilliant," I mutter, slinging it in my bag. There must be nosepass or something nearby, throwing off how my compass reads directions. I should have marked the way that we were coming, rather than just relying on Kiki.

I _still_ don't like the fact that I can't hear any other pokémon. I pick up a piece of a rock from the ground – after having Mandy check to make sure it wasn't a random bit of a geodude – and start to mark the way that I take. The noise the rock makes as I scribble into it hurts my ears.

_This was such a stupid idea._ I can wait around for Falkner to try and find me, but his birds must be useless in a cave like this. Of all the places I could have chosen to go, somewhere that the one person who's trying to help me can't function properly was _not_ a good idea.

It's almost like the universe knows when to kick me, because the way that the ground is ruling _cannot_ be anything good.

Kiki hisses as something thick and heavy wraps around my waist. I scream, thinking it's a machoke or something creepy that's come out of the darkness to kidnap me because that's what must be happening with everyone.

I struggle. The bonds are too tight. Mandy does nothing to help. The flashlight in my hands doesn't cut through whatever it is. I scream as suddenly the ground disappears from beneath my feet and the ceiling is right behind my back and a pack of rhyhorn start _stampeding_ below and I can only think of that movie with the luxray getting trampled by all those sawsbuck and –

Kiki grunts, right next to my ear.

I think I start shrieking in tones that only pokémon can hear. The rhyhorn beneath me continue to stampede, shaking the walls of the cave with each step. Whatever's holding me groans, like it's about to give way. Only now do I point the flashlight at it and see exactly what it is holding me.

Thick, green, pulsing vines.

"Oh," I mutter, feeling incredibly stupid. I point my torch to my side and see Kiki crouching atop a long, coiled vine that has erupted from the side of the cave wall. Mandy sits beside her, fluffed up and balancing precariously close to the edge. "Thanks," I mutter.

She hisses something that _sounds _like it was meant to be reassuring. With her, I'm not even sure anymore. Once the cave stops rocking, the vines holding me start to loosen and descend towards the ground. It's almost like being hugged by something that smells like a giant plant – which I guess it kind of is, really.

I start to investigate the tracks of where the rhyhorn have been running from, marking my way as I go, with a little arrow pointed in the direction I took and my initials around it. I have no idea how many other people have come this way but I do _not_ want to accidentally end up following their markings and walking into a big, hungry steelix or anything.

Instead, the ground rumbles again and I look up just in time to see a very _big_ and _angry_ looking rhyhorn lumbering towards me.

I shriek and run backwards even as it _roars_ and leaps forwards. Kiki drops from the ceiling and that rhyhorn tries to turn away but instead she just smashes her fists in its face and it moans and collapses on the floor and then suddenly Mandy shrieks as she swoops from the ceiling and starts attacking it and I see bits of rock chip away and the thing moans and –

-I sling a poké ball at the creature, watching as it dissolves into bright red light. Even if it doesn't capture it, breaking free will stun it enough for us to escape.

Then impossibly, the ball dings shut, leaving all three of us staring at it.

"This is weird," I whisper, walking towards it. I've heard of people managing to capture pokémon easily the first few times – but in somewhere like _Mount Silver?_ I check the poké ball, scratch the red paint and try to see if someone's secretly painted over an ultra ball or something like that. Nothing.

Scavenging my pokédex from my bag and scanning the poké ball reveals nothing new, other than the rhyhorn is _so_ much weaker than it should be. Kiki is strong, sure, but there's no way that she could have caused that many injuries – I'm sure that neither of them went anywhere near its legs.

"Okay, I'm gonna follow what the rhyhorn were doing," I say. Because I know that they have to have been running from _something_, but only an idiot would go after what they were running from. I like living.

Of course, the monster that was chasing them has other ideas. I feel the ground continue to rumble – far worse than the entire stampede of the rhyhorn. Vines wrap around my waist again. The floor disappears beneath my feet. The ceiling holds onto me like I'm its long-forgotten child.

Then the monster appears and I realise that nowhere I go will be high enough up.

Even slithering, laying on its belly, it's still almost the height of the tunnel. Bits of dying, glowing moss grow along the length of its body. I can see dried blood crusting around the edges of its mouth.

I picture Nathan getting eaten by the steelix once more. I relive every moment in horrible, slow-motion gruesomeness.

Then I picture the onix slithering towards me doing exactly the same to me.

"_Kiki_!" I scream. The vines holding me disappear. I drop onto a platform of vines that erupt from the walls. Screaming, I run away from the onix, over the edge of the platform. More vines burst from the ground, from the walls, all aiding my descent. I hear the onix scream as it gets tangled up in them. Kiki appears by my side, riding a thick, glowing vine like a surfer on a wave.

Mandy shrieks as she dives in front of us, sprinting through the sky. I try my best to keep up. I'm only little. My legs aren't fast enough. I can feel the onix's hot breath on my back. It smells like dead things.

Kiki starts to glow green; the vines beneath her respond. I blink and suddenly the whole cavern is lit up by a brilliant green light, so bright that I have to close my eyes, even as I run.

Something trips my feet. I go down hard, screaming. Behind me, the onix roars. It has to be the one that ate a feraligatr. The little details – the missing left eye. The chip on its head crest. The cave paintings on the third segment of its body. The onix is _ancient_ and hungry and angry that we're here.

I look back just in time to see a wall of weeds burst free from the ground. They snake up over the walls, the ceiling and over the onix itself. The smell of freshly cut grass punches me in the nose. The onix _bellows_ as the plants start growing over it, coming out through its eyes and making flowers that burst into bigger, thicker vines that wrap around it and stop it from moving.

Kiki makes a sound like a chuckle before she drops to the ground, unresponsive. I recall her and run before I can see what's happening with the onix. Mandy swoops back and shrieks, flying just enough in front of me that I can see where I'm going.

Finally, I get somewhere that I can't heat the onix anymore. My eyes sting worse than ever, like I've just poked my fingers in them and tried to pluck them out. The only thing that I can hear is my own breathing – I sound like an eighty year old man that smokes about fifty cigarettes a day.

"Holy… holy crap," I stutter, heaving in lungfuls of air as quickly as I can. Mandy trills an agreement. "That was… _oh my god._" I gasp and collapse to the floor, unable to trust my legs to move anymore.

"I am _never_ coming back here again," I resolve, laughing just a little. Jerry would go _crazy_ if he found out what I was doing. I'm pretty sure Diz would have a heart attack too. The moment I get out of here, I have to let them know, just so I can see the looks on their faces.

…of course, that means I need to _find_ my way out of here first. I look up, point my flashlight at the roof and see that there's nothing familiar about this part of the caves. Thick, gross-smelling fog creeps around the top of the cave, almost yellow in colour.

I groan and push myself back to my feet. "We need to find a way out of here," I tell Mandy. "Where do you think we should go?"

At that moment, the torch I hold begins to flicker. Inwardly, I groan. _Of course, _I think, just before the light winks out, leaving me in complete darkness.

"I am so pushing Falkner into a volcano when I see him next."


	33. Caverns of Black

_Diary,_

_I found a tower dedicated to memories. Dead pokémon, their epitaphs mourned by human and pokémon alike. The grief that dangled over the tower was like a physical presence, though it felt almost evil._

_Here, the world seems to be treated with respect. Flowers are laid at graves. The town seems to be cared for with love and care. I am confused, Diary. What makes this place so special? Why does it deserve such attention when other places are left to disrepair?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pokémon<strong>_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Caverns of Black|<strong>

**-O-O-O-**

The darkness feels like it clings to every part of my body. I can hear Mandy's wings as she flutters around me, still able to see in the relative darkness.

I try my best to follow her by the sound of her wings until my brain catches up with the situation.

"I'm a moron," I say to the darkness. Thankfully, it doesn't answer me. "Mandy," I say, stretching out my arm. I grunt when her weight lands on me, pushing down against my arm. I have to put my free hand under my arm to try and stabilise it.

"Cloak us," I tell her. With the way her screech suddenly sounds like I'm hearing it through cotton wool, I know that she's obeyed. I try to step and feel like I'm trying to walk on a pool of jelly. I blink my eyes to make certain that they are actually open. It's so dark now that I could believe that my eyes were shut.

"Okay," I say to the void. "Now disperse it."

Sound comes back at once. I can hear something dripping in the distance. Where before I had thought the caves were empty, now I can hear a distant _humming_ of some sort. It's not like there's an actual sound for my ears to process, which just makes me stare at it in confusion. It's similar to the feeling of knowing someone is looking at you, but I'm noticing it through my ears instead.

Light returns to the caverns. I rub my eyes and open them to find everything displayed before me in black, white and grey. It's like I've sat in the dark for half the night and developed perfect night vision.

Mandy trills; a ball of pure black on my arm. I lean my head towards her and let her rub her beak against my cheek. She nips at my hair and starts to twirl it before I pull away.

"Stay on my shoulder," I tell her, dropping my arms. She squawks as she takes to the air and seems to _huff_ as she sits down on my shoulder, hugging my head with her wings. "Thanks," I whisper, reaching up to pet her wings. "Keep an eye out for me. I can't see everything in here."

I grin to myself as I recover my torch and spin it around by the loop of string. If only Jerry could see me now. He'd be still running around in a panic because his torch went out. Sometimes, my ideas are so awesome that I almost wish he was here for me to show off.

Then again, given everything that's happened to me, maybe it's a good thing that he's not here with me.

I have Mandy blanket everything in darkness again for me to release Duke. Once I feel the ball finish letting him out, I have Mandy disperse the darkness again.

I see Duke standing in front of me, staring up at me with wide, curious eyes. I guess I'd be confused too if I suddenly emerged into pitch black darkness.

"I thought you'd want to join us," I say, my voice barely more than a whisper. With Mandy covering everything in darkness, it means that I don't lose my night vision by being blinded by the light from the poké balls.

He waddles up beside me, brushing so close that I end up nearly flinching at the contact. No matter what, _anything_ touching you when you're in a dark, scary cave is something that'll make you jump.

"This is part of Mount Silver," I tell him. "It's home to really strong pokémon – I think it's like Cerulean Cave. So it's almost like where you're from."

I see him try to make shapes like letters, but my night vision isn't good enough to tell what he's trying to say. I make the mental note to try and teach him how to actually speak afterwards – as far as I know, poliwag and their families are meant to have some sort of latent psychic abilities, so I don't see how learning to speak can be much different from writing or something like telekinesis.

"I can't see enough to see what you're trying to say," I tell him. His hands aren't quite developed enough yet to have separate fingers, so I can't even have him just draw them out on my hands. "Just point at anything you wanna know about and I'll try to explain it. And keep an eye out for pokémon," I add. "I still haven't seen many in here, so it's kinda weird. Was Cerulean Cave like this?"

He seems to stare off into the darkness for a long time before I see him nod, just a little.

_Huh_. That's even weirder.

"I thought these places were meant to be filled with horribly strong pokémon," I say. "Not that I'm complaining. But, I dunno. _Red_ disappeared here. Everyone always warns us to stay away from these places and yet… there's nothing here."

As if to prove me wrong, I hear the distant roaring of the onix again. I wince as the sound echoes around the caverns, though thankfully it's going in the other direction.

"Except for that," I concede.

Duke, distracted by something in the darkness, hops away and towards what seems to be a big pile of rocks. From my shoulder, Mandy trills happily. I have to shush her as Duke bounces back, holding a little smooth stone in his hands.

"What's this?" I ask.

Predictably, I don't understand his response.

I sigh. "I need to teach you telepathy somehow. Or just to talk. Thanks though." I slide the stone into my pocket and walk slowly through the tunnel, brushing my hands against the wall to try and find out where my markings are.

I really need to stop panicking and doing things without thinking. Scratch that, I need to think more in general. Jerry's right – I would have been researching everything to do with what Diz said if everything wasn't so weird.

I start to turn down a part of the caves but something stops me. I shake my head, feeling sick, like there's food in my stomach that's suddenly gone off. I groan, clutching my tummy and turn around, stumbling away until it settles again. I do _not_ need to suddenly get diarrhoea down here.

I feel Mandy hug me just a little bit tighter. I hum as I reach up to pet her, unable to find the words that sit on the tip of my tongue.

The wall falls away beneath my fingertips. I shriek as parts of it crumble away, picturing every worst case scenario in my brain. Instead, as the little pieces of rock fall to the floor, I see that it's just weathering damage.

That just makes my brain dance with more questions. I don't know much about geography, sure, but I'm sure that the rocks only get weathered like that when they're outside and exposed to everything. In here, there shouldn't be any damage like that – not unless either they've been exposed to rain, frost and wind for continual random cycles.

"At least I've found some of my markings," I say, brushing my fingertips over the wall again. When Duke grunts and looks up at me, I grab one of his hands and press it to the wall. "I scratched a mark there, so that I'd be able to find out where I'd gone. The arrow points in the way that I went, so I just need to go the other way to get back out."

He continues to look at it, as if it might suddenly begin to talk and tell him all the secrets of life.

"Come on," I say, grabbing his hand and leading him away. "I don't really want to stay here much longer, not with-"

A colossal shadow moves ahead, creating a new tunnel as it passes. The sound of the earth itself screaming echoes in my ears.

"-that onix slithering about," I finish. "Come on."

I start to job the way back out. Duke bounces along behind me, croaking quietly. Mandy is silent on my shoulders. I almost feel like I can't think anymore. The only goal is getting back out of here. I was so stupid to come in here in the first place.

I hear echoes of something new in the tunnel. It sounds like it's heading towards me. I stop running, spin around and try to see what it might be.

It's large, almost formless in the darkness. I can hear the sound of beating wings. Its eyes seem to glow yellow.

Whatever it happens to be, it's flying there, watching me, waiting.

I am _not_ getting attacked again. "Duke, blast it!"

I _hear_ more than see the water as it slams into the flying thing. I toss out Cassie's poké ball and shield my eyes as the light erupts into the cavern. Whatever the thing is, apparently it doesn't like light. It screams even louder than before.

"Cassie!" I cry. "Freeze it!"

The temperature around us plummets. Even beneath my coat, I can feel my skin erupting into goose bumps. I race to Duke's side and feel the temperature plummet even further as he begins to turn his blasts of water into beams of pure, cold ice.

The sound of wings beating stops. I call my pokémon off, straining my ears to the silence. It could have landed somewhere, biding its time to attack. If it lives here, then it can see in the dark – far better than I can. It could attack at any moment and –

- footsteps.

"Mandy!" I hiss. She takes off without a sound. I hear her screech as she attacks. Someone screams. They swear in a language I have no hope of understanding.

"Call… call it off!" cries the person.

I frown. The voice is familiar, male. As I walk towards the sound of him, I recall Cassie and Duke. Mandy dances around the person's head, striking as he tries to beat her away with his hands.

I see that the person is wearing padded clothes, like they think they're part of the riot police. As he looks up, I recognise his features instantly.

"Oh, hi Falkner," I say.

"Finally," he sighs. Mandy seems to realise that she doesn't need to attack him any more. She circles around his head instead, completing two full circles before she lands back on my shoulder.

I'm tempted to have her attack him again.

"You're okay," he groans, doubling over. "I've been looking for you since I saw you come in here. What _were you thinking?"_

I shrug – not that he can see it. "Dunno," I say. "I thought maybe this was part of your test."

He splutters a string of words so weird that I'm not sure if he's even speaking a human language any longer.

When he stands back up, he sighs. "I suppose next time I should explain the criteria of my test better. Your goal was to survive out here and investigate the campsite."

"Well I thought that maybe the person who went missing disappeared into the caves," I say. "I mean, it's perfectly possible isn't it?"

He makes a sound halfway between a sigh and a growl. "I despair the fact that you are technically right. Regardless, that was not your mission. However, you have proven that you can survive out here where there are powerful pokémon out to try and kill you. That was the idea of my test. You also managed to defeat my crobat that I sent to scout for you."

He points a poké ball at a spot behind me and I watch as the thin beam of red light strikes a frozen shape in the darkness.

I grin at him. "So I get a badge?" Mandy shrieks as I start to bounce up and down.

"In some ways, you have gone above and beyond what I thought about you. In others, you have failed completely."

That means no. _Holy crap I'm gonna have to come out here again but I don't want to deal with caves and giant onix anymore._

"You can be smart it seems, when you apply yourself to something," Falkner tells me. "You need to stop going along with situations and actually stop to think. Only then can you truly apply yourself and bring out the limits of your intelligence."

"Oh," I say, my heart pounding. He's going to say I've failed. He's going to tell me I'm crap and I've got to come back in a year or something.

"Be more aware of your surroundings, take in more of what's happening around you and stop to think things through once in a while. When we get back to Violet, I will award you with my badge and my recommendation."

Only the distant rumbling of the onix stops me from cheering out loud.

"And speaking of which, we should leave," he says. "Something in here is preventing me from having my xatu teleporting us out, so we must exit the old fashioned way. Stay close to me this time," he says, pointing to his side. "You've already proven that you can survive out here. Don't push your luck and leave here feet first."

**-O-O-O-**

Dusk is starting to settle in as I walk through the Ruins of Alph once more. I want to see Cynthia again, even though I doubt she's here this time.

I grin as I begin to skip a little, aimlessly wandering through the ancient ruins. One more badge down. Another one from Johto and then I can go to Hoenn, then after that it's Unova and I get to battle Lenora and then I can _finally_ start to study. It feels like I've been travelling forever.

I smile at the archaeologists that I can see still digging away in pits. They're covered in so much dirt and sweat that I can only assume they've been here all day whilst I was sat on the back of a salamence and being lectured by Falkner that I should be certain to stay away from dangerous places in future.

Mount Silver can't be _that_ dangerous. There were hardly any pokémon there!

Just the big, scary, angry looking onix that apparently eats a lot of fully trained pokémon. And the stampede of rhyhorn that nearly squished me.

I shrug to myself as I open up the hunting website and add the details of the graveller I caught. Its ball is still sitting at the bottom of my bag, abandoned and forgotten.

I check a few posts of people offering to buy one and send a few messages to a couple of different people that work for sanctuaries and places like that. I don't care if they're not paying _millions_ for them, I don't really want to send it to a place where it's just going to be abused and used as cheap labour. I've already captured it and taken it from its home, anything else on top of that would be mean.

I see that there's even more postings from the Lake of Rage, all from the same V person. I decide that maybe I should stay away from there if there's so much happening that someone is putting up _loads_ of hunting requests.

The rhyhorn I caught still sits in the bottom of my bag, contained and slowly healing, according to the pokémon centre people. Apparently he'll be fine to battle soon, but the nurse also told me that he's a lot stronger than he looks so I should be careful training him.

I grin as I stare up at the sky, imagining riding a rhyhorn on the roads as all the people drive past in their cars and get scared when it roars.

Of course, after having to face it down, the thought of dealing with its roary face again is slightly terrifying.

"Another time," I sigh, patting my bag. Maybe once I've gotten Duke a little stronger too, but I have to let it out at some point to make sure I feed it and everything.

Once more I slide underneath the red ropes that seal off parts of the ruins and begin to explore the crumbling old buildings. Old, worn mosaics still sit in the floor, painting pictures of some sort of weird ceremony that could be important, but it could just be someone being thanked for going out and buying milk.

I make sure there aren't any security people watching as I sneak up the steps towards an old altar. I'm not sure what people used to worship here, but the once-white marble pillars have crumbled away so much they're only a little taller than me. In the middle of them all is a big pedestal, with ancient writing scrawled across it that reminds me of when Cynthia activated the unown below.

When I look back up, it's like all the stars in the sky have gone out. For a moment I'm convinced that I'm back in Mount Silver, staring up at the cave ceiling and about to be eaten by a hungry onix.

A breeze drifts over me, chilling me in a way that I'm certain makes my bones feel like ice. I shut my eyes, feel my heart race and know what's going to be waiting for me when I open them.

On top of each of the four pillars is a little girl, dressed in pure white. Streams of red run from their eyes, down their cheeks and slowly straining the tops of their dresses. They skip atop their pillar, their movement never making a sound.

"_Become what you hate, destroy that which you seek; in victory lies but sorrow and grief~"_

I frown as I continue to watch them, reaching in my jacket pocket for Mandy's poké ball as I do. When I release her, the girls make no reaction to her presence.

It's only when Mandy lands on my shoulder that the girls begin to _flicker_, like they're made of static.

"I knew it," I whisper, staring up at them.

As one, the girls all look down at me. Their eyes are missing. Little bleeding black voids of _nothingness_ stare at me as if they're seeing into my very soul and analysing each little detail.

"You're not real," I tell them, clenching my fists. "You're not real."

They vanish. I sigh and close my eyes. The moment I open them, the girls are in front of me, their faces in mine. I can see _things_ crawling around inside of their eye sockets. Their faces are decaying. They _smell_ like they've rotted for years and their bones show through their tight, thin skin.

When they scream it's like someone's reached into my heart with a cold, dead fist. I scream and drop to the floor and Mandy starts to shriek and then suddenly the noise goes and when I look up again, I'm left with empty sky and a distinct feeling of loneliness.

I sit on the floor, breathing heavily, shaking my head as if it might stop the _screaming_ from echoing inside.

"I need to study more," I whisper, picking up Mandy and cradling her to my chest. I run my fingers over her head and try to pretend that I'm shivering only because of the cold. "Something, somewhere has to say something about them."

Though honestly, I'm just a little scared as to what I might find out.


	34. Interlude III

_**Pokémon**_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

* * *

><p><strong>|Interlude II|<strong>

**\**_Nieve Jones_**/**

**-O-O-O-**

"God damn it woman, sort your family out!"

The phone bounces off the wall and lands with a _crunch_ on the floor. She hears sounds coming from the phone and sighs as she picks it up.

"Sorry," she says, feeling the cracked screen brush against her cheek, "I'm just… _shit_, this is getting annoying now."

"I know," says the voice on the phone. "I'm sorry, I really am."

"I just…" She pinches the bridge of her nose as she growls. "It feels like _forever_ since I got to see you. Sometimes it feels like I'm the bottom of a deep, bottomless hole of your priorities, Marsha."

"I know, Nieve. Trust me, I know." Her voice is tired, bordering on exhausted. "It's shit."

"That's one word for it." She laughs once. It amazes her how broken her own voice sounds. "It _sucks_. God, you know that when my friends come to me with problems less than this, I tell them to dump the stupid asshole and get a new man in their life."

"I know," Marsha says. "And I really appreciate it. Everything's just shit at the moment. I… I don't know when it will get better but I really do appreciate everything you do for me."

She listens to the way her sigh echoes in the women's bathroom. Anxiety forces her to stand and begin pacing again, checking the beige doored stalls to make sure she's still alone, even though she locked the main door behind herself.

Her reflection looks worried. She can see the way her lips tremble and the way her hand shakes as it holds the phone against her ear.

"Marsha…" she says lowly, feeling her heart hammering beneath her breast. She can take on criminals and drug dealers with less of a panic-filled rush swimming through her veins. "Is everything fine between us?"

"Of course," she answers, confusion in her tone. "I mean, it's well… is there something I should know?"

"No," she says, running her free hand through her hair. "I just… I'm not _used_ to this sorta shit Marsha. I'm used to lies and pretences. It's annoying that you're honest because that means I can't actually get mad, even though I want to scream and shout."

The laugh that comes down the phone sounds forced, just a little. She wonders if that's just her brain overthinking things again.

"I'll make it up to you," she promises. "Look, I've got to go. You're not the bottom of my priorities, Nieve, you know that."

"I know. I just… _guh_, I want to scream and shout and beat something but I can't. I want to sit around and spend time with you but every time there's a criminal on the run around or something happening that drags your attention away. I _really_ like that you're so selfless, but at the same time it's so _annoying_ that I can't just be selfish and have you all to myself."

"I feel shit about it all, trust me." The phone hisses as winds on Marsha's end pick up. Not for the first time, Nieve wonders just where she's been stuck this time. "I want to spend time with you and I feel shit that every time I get to see you something happens to drag us away. It'll all get better, I promise."

"It better do," she answers, laughing even though she wants to cry. As she inspects her hair in the mirror, she wonders if she'll start finding greys sometime soon. "I'll see you later? Any idea when yet?"

"Later, definitely. I'm not sure when yet; I'll text you when I know."

"Fine," she sighs, already wondering just when that text will happen to be. "Bye."

She hangs up before she can say anything else that she wants to. The dark blue police uniform she wears feels like a mobile cage. Every ounce of free time she gets is already spent on trying to catch people that she hasn't managed to during the day.

"I never go for the _normal_ ones," she spits at her reflection. "I could find a nice girl who is happy to sit in on a Friday night with some wine and a lasagne. But _no_, instead I have to like the crazy one with family issues and a job that takes her everywhere and anywhere at the drop of a hat – not to mention the friends that turn up at the spur of the moment needing help."

She growls as she wipes her hands over her face, checking for any streaks of tears. Her hair is already starting to break free of the beehive she styled it into.

"I'd have broken up with anyone else," she tells her reflection. Even that seems to doubt her. "Why the hell do I have to like this one more than I should?"

The mirrors fail to answer her. She runs the taps in the sink, washes her face and dries it with plain white paper towels before tossing them in the trash and unlocking the bathroom door.

At least this time there isn't a queue of women waiting to get in. _That_ had been fun to try and explain away.

The corridors of Castellia Police Station are remarkably worn, with dark green carpets that seem more abused than some victims she's had to work cases with. The walls are grey, filled with cork pin boards covered with pictures of wanted suspects and general practice behaviours.

"Fuck everything," she tells herself. "I don't care any more."

Except she _does_, which she knows is the problem in itself.

The office is packed when she walks in, filled with officers dealing with the latest wave of crime. If nothing else, she knows it'll keep her busy for some time.

She sighs as she finds her desk and the paperwork buried beneath her countless cups of coffee. Missing kid, missing kid and surprisingly enough – another missing kid.

Someone seems to be going around kidnapping all these children and leaving no trace behind. It's half the reason why she wants to go and see Marsha – so that she can forget that people out there do such depraved shit.

Dead end after dead end. She wants to scream, cry and pull her hair out all at once. It's becoming glaringly obvious that this is a nationwide thing – reports are filtering in from as far north as Anville and as far south as the tiniest little villages at the bottom of Unova.

"One thing after another," she sighs, sifting through empty coffee cups to find one that still has traces of caffeine left inside. "There's got to be something here."

It's dark outside before she admits that she has no new leads.

**-O-O-O-**

Her apartment is a mess. Even with the lights off, she already knows that it looks like she's been burgled.

"Really should get around to cleaning," she mumbles as she switches on the lights. The takeout she's ordered should be arriving sometime soon. After a day of staring at papers, the idea of Chinese food and shit tv sounds amazing.

"_Yes, you really should._"

She drops her keys and fumbles for the gun on her belt. Sat atop the black leather sofa in her living room is a medicham, so bright blue in colour that she's amazed she managed to miss it in the first place.

"_If your next question is 'who sent you', perhaps you should consider that I am here of my own volition."_

"Right," Nieve says, pointing her gun at the pokémon. It seems so at home in the middle of her mess that she can't help but feel unnerved. Her piles of unwashed clothes are undisturbed. The empty pots of cocoa butter remain on the floor where she dropped them. Her television is mounted on the wall, framed by a bra that she tossed there in the heat of the moment.

"You're meant to be a psychic," she says, "shouldn't you know what my next question is going to be anyway?"

The medicham sighs as it closes its eyes. _"Perhaps._" Its voice reminds her of an old kung fu master from the shitty martial arts films she's suffered through before. It just gives her the mental image of the pokémon with a long, white beard, sat there stroking it as it talks to her.

"_I am afraid I cannot grow a beard, interesting as that visual is."_

Nieve considers her options before she holsters her gun. No point trying to shoot the creature that can obviously read her mind. If it wanted to kill her, she'd already be dead.

Instead she walks past the doorway to the living room and into her tiny kitchen. "Don't suppose you drink coffee?" she asks as she boils the kettle.

"_Never tried it. Though I will admit I am curious as to your sudden change in demeanour. What has brought this on?"_

"Academy training," she answers, finding the sugar buried at the back of her spices cupboard. "Pokémon threat analysis. Deals with how to combat enemy psychics. If you wanted to kill me, I'd already be dead. If you try to attack, it's not like my gun would help me much."

"_Interesting."_

Even though the creature is in the other room, its voice sounds like it's being whispered into her ear. She knows that it's a form of telepathy, but something about it seems strange, off somehow.

"_And of course, should I choose to attack, you have three pokémon ready to attack at your call."_

"Providing I can activate them before you attack," she answers. She pours herself the largest cup of coffee she can find as she considers how strange it is she's being so honest with what amounts to a pokémon burglar.

"God damn it Marsha," she whispers to herself. "I'm way too used to the crazy shit you pull now. Was a time where I wouldn't be so candid with everyone and everything."

"_Honesty isn't exactly a bad thing."_

She sighs as she walks into the living room and sits down on the couch opposite the creature. "So since you mention honesty, I don't suppose you're likely to be perfectly candid with me?"

"_Perhaps,"_ it says, crossing its legs. _"My name is Xur."_

"Shi-ur," she repeats, trying to get the pronunciation right, "so, why are you here?"

"_A multitude of reasons." _It holds out a hand, palm out and a flash of green light nearly blinds her. When she opens her eyes again, boxes of Chinese food are hovering above Xur's hand, glowing as green as its eyes.

"_I believe you ordered this,"_ it says. Another flash of green and the food appears in her lap, with a clean plate from the kitchen and all the cutlery she seems to own. _"Please, feel free to eat. I will not take offence."_

Nieve doesn't argue. Instead she buries her fork in the chicken chow mein and consumes it greedily. "So," she says around a mouthful of noodles, "why are you here? More to the point; why _me_ of all people?"

"_You know who sent me."_

She feels her eyes narrow as her brain runs over all the possibilities. Names of criminals flicker through her memory; all the people she's pissed off along the way.

In the end, only one person would send a medicham into her living room that would also teleport in the takeout she's ordered.

"So what did Marsha have to say?"

The pokémon seems to laugh, though no sound comes from it. _"Astute of you. Yes, she asked me to contact you."_

"And she couldn't come here herself because?"

"_Because her family seem impossible to be rid of,"_ it answers, smiling wryly. _"However, she knows that you have been working on a case that has troubled you. She also knows that you need leads and that she cannot help you directly."_

She nods as she bites the head off a tempura prawn. "So, what's this thing she's found out that is so important she sends you to see me. And why _you_, of everyone that she could have sent?"

"_Because I am the one independent ally that she thinks she can trust with your life._"

"Oh," Nieve says, dropping her fork. Her heart skips a beat, even though she would rather it didn't. Even she is unsure what she'll do when she sees Marsha next – the options are limited to punch her or kiss her.

Maybe both, given that she's given a _medicham_ access to her apartment.

"Then what do you have to tell me?" she asks Xur.

"_Not tell,_" it says, _"show. The one common thread that you have all overlooked, yet the one thing that you cannot bring to the people in charge."_

"And why is that?"

"_Because who would believe you if you told them that the legends were dying? That myths are real, but they're being murdered one by one."_

She feels her brain run into a wall and struggle to get back up. "What… what do you mean?"

It holds out a hand to her, sparks of green dancing from its fingers. _"It will be easier to show you. Consent and I will take you to where it all began – to a beach between Accumula and Nuvema."_

"I have a job," she says, despite the _want_ to find out what's happening. "I can't just crap out on them."

"_You can do both," _Xur tells her_, "I can teleport. You can work normally during the day and discover everything else you wish outside of work._" More sparks dance off its fingers. She watches them dance, like tiny little fireworks in the middle of her living room. _"You know already that not everything happens within the reach of the law. That is why others exist, working in the shadows, doing what they can to help._

"_And as it stands, you are the only one she trusts to help her in this. Make your choice. If you decline, you shall never see me again."_

She takes the pokémon's hand before she can think twice about it. "Help me find out what's happening with these children," she says.

As her apartment vanishes in a flash of green, everything she has ever known about the world turns upside down.


	35. The Ties That Bind

_Diary,_

_The town of Saffron pulses with psychic presence. Scars of past trauma linger over the city like a bad memory, still affecting the people that live there, even now._

_Yet no one seems to recognise the symptoms of psychic decay. I should try to help, because it is the right thing to do._

_Perhaps if more people acted in such a way, I would not have witnessed the horrors that I have._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Pok<strong>**é**__**mon**_

_**Transgression**_

_By Crukix_

**|The Ties That Bind|**

**-O-O-O-**

Ecruteak is the sort of city that seems to cling to its past and never let go. I mean, I know since I like history and everything that really I should love this place, but really it seems kinda… _sad_. I mean, the past should stay there, back in the sort of place where we can study it and imagine all the magical things it could have been with the tiniest amount of evidence possible. There's something _fun_ in piecing together what could have happened in the past based on the tiny amount of information we have available.

I remember mentioning that to my dad and having him respond that I'd do well working with the police. I can see the similarities but to be honest, I don't think I'm cut out for chasing after bad guys all day and trying to help people like that.

The towers in Ecruteak are pretty and the houses are all built with sliding paper doors as some sort of way to honour the style that the original settlers created it with. I see big, wooden buildings that are all dark crimson in colour, advertising stuff like Kendo classes and Tai Chi lessons.

It seems a little like a perfect town I'd see in one of the animes my brother watches. I can picture it perfectly - the camera zooms in across all the similar-looking buildings as a murkrow swoops past in the sky, the we go down to street level and zoom through right up until the moment the camera lands on the main character - a teenage boy who ends up wanting to do everything because it's right and doesn't think about anything beyond that.

_Boring._

If I get magical anime powers, the first thing I'd do would be find out what's killing all the legendaries and stop them. Then once I know I'm safe, I'd find my parents and give them a nice, happy house somewhere and then I'd get the rest of the badges that I need and then I'd go to Anville and get all my studying done. I'd also maybe give Kiki the ability to smile once in a while, providing it doesn't break the rules of the universe.

I pull on the straps of my rucksack, silently amazed that I don't really feel its weight anymore. I mean, I know that eventually I'm meant to get stronger by continually carrying it, but actually _noticing_ that I'm finding it easier to carry is something else.

So long as I don't end up with huge monster muscles. I do _not_ need to look like a gurdurr, thank you very much.

I make the mental note not to say such things near Ali. She might not have the muscles like one, but I know that she's the strongest person I know so I do _not_ want to upset her.

I adjust the straps on my rucksack as I walk down one of Ecruteak's many cobblestone streets. The pavements are normal flat pieces of concrete but I'm sure the black street likes look like the sort of ones that someone has to come along at night time and start lighting.

The houses are decorated with pale beige paper-walls that all have different black drawings on them. In a way, they're kinda pretty, but I have no idea what they're meant to be or even what they're meant to say.

What does catch my attention though, is the flashing blue lights of a police car three houses away from me. A circle of little black posts have yellow caution tape running between them, blocking people off from getting too close.

I check my phone and see that it's barely past dawn, which I guess explains why there aren't all that many people out here. A crowd of maybe about eight people at most are grouped around the tape, trying to see into the house and what's happening.

The moment I see the paramedics bringing out a stretcher with someone covered by a black bag, I get a good idea of what's going on here.

I turn away and try to leave the people to it. People die all the time - I've _seen_ someone get eaten by a steelix and people eaten by zombies. Something in my brain tells me I should be immune to death by now, but I still feel a sickly flutter in my tummy when I look over and see the black bag.

In the street I take to get away from the house, I see a woman sat outside a cafe, sipping at a bone-white china mug of coffee. On her own, she isn't much to notice - dark skin, short, black hair with a streak of purple and pink on either side of her head. She wears a white blouse and a pair of black trousers, somehow unstained from the jelly doughnut that sits on a plate in front of her.

The fact that she's sitting outside and drinking coffee so early is weird enough.

What settles it is that she sits with a bright _blue_ medicham.

I can't help but stare, just a little. I mean, I never really have much of a chance to see medicham anyway, but they do seem pretty cool with how they can fight and still have psychic powers - Ali would _love_ to have one - but seeing a shiny one is something else. It's just _so blue_. It reminds me of the colour of the ocean, on a nice day with the sun beating down and -

- it reminds me of the dead phione that started all of this.

What little breakfast I've eaten so far this morning turns sour in my tummy. I want to turn away and pretend I haven't seen them, but the medicham catches my eyes. Though it doesn't speak into my mind, I feel like I can hear it calling me over.

Something about it seems strangely familiar. Not like I've known it, but it's the sort of familiarity I've had when I've spoke to someone that knows one of my friends, before the awkward phase of trying to make small talk happens.

When I walk up to them, the woman smiles at me and gestures to the chair opposite her, to the left of the medicham. That's unnerving enough - more so when she pushes forwards a piece of chocolate cheesecake at me.

"I'm not hungry," I say, taking the seat. "Why am I so familiar with you guys that I'm sitting here anyway? Shouldn't I be avoiding you?"

The woman smiles at me. It's a warm, friendly smile that only makes me feel a little unnerved by how _pleasant_ it is. "We have a friend in common. She seems to have this innate ability to make sure that people around her do exactly what she wants them to do. If she wants you to be friends, then even if you've never met each other before, you can't help but feel relaxed around them.

"Likewise, should she not want you to get along, you'll hate someone before you've ever even spoken to them."

I feel the frown creasing my face. "So you're saying that she's played with my emotions?" I try to think of anyone I know that could have done that. My mind comes up blank.

Just to be on the safe side, I release Mandy and have her sit on my shoulder. She squawks when she erupts from the poké ball and wraps a wing around my head.

Clarity is like a breath of fresh air. I don't feel so comfortable around the woman and the pokémon anymore. In fact, I start to feel horribly stupid for sitting down in the first place.

Whoever we know is a psychic, apparently. Or at least able to use their abilities. The vullaby on my shoulder works wonders in blocking out every weird thing they try to do, apparently.

If she hadn't been so quick to point out that this person was a woman, I'd bet money it was Diz. Given his habit of wandering around naked there's no way he can ever pretend to be a girl.

"Who's this friend?" I ask, poking at the cheesecake. It smells _amazing_, but I'm not about to eat it, especially with the wide-eyed emotionless stare of a medicham focused on me. It already lured me here somehow - I'm only not running away, screaming like a crazy person because I don't know what it can do on top of that.

"I'm not sure if you'll remember her or not," says the woman. "Her name is Marsha."

I frown as I try to place a face to the name. I'm sure I've got someone's card buried in my wallet with that name on it, but I can't really remember who it is.

"She's a police officer," the woman continues. "Well, sometimes she is," she adds, almost as an afterthought, nearly too quiet for me to hear.

I get the vague memory of blonde hair and something to do with Pascal, before I actually knew him. "I think I know who you mean," I say, glaring at the medicham. The way the memories seemed to surface seems strange. I don't know much about psychics really - I should go find a psychic gym and study there for a little while to learn a bit more - but it _has_ to be doing something to manipulate my memories, which really shouldn't be possible with Mandy sat on my shoulder, her wings hugging my head. She managed to block out a load already, which means that either the medicham was just testing me before, or that it somehow knows a way around being mentally blocked.

Neither option is appealing.

"I have a photograph, if that helps," the woman says, handing me her phone. On the screen is a picture of her and a woman with long blonde hair, both of them wearing big pairs of sunglasses on their heads. For some reason their hair is completely covered in _spaghetti_ of all things and I'm pretty sure there's tomato sauce dribbling down their chins.

"I think I remember her," I say, handing her back the phone. The memories drift lazily across my mind, though the moment Mandy shuffles on my shoulder, they stop. I glare at the medicham. It continues to sit there, impassive, apathetic. "Can you stop your medicham from doing that?"

"Doing what?" she asks, looking surprised. "And he's not mine. He's a friend."

"He keeps pulling up my memories so I know who you're talking about, but he shouldn't be able to since I have my vullaby on my shoulder. She's meant to block stuff like this from happening."

The woman sighs as she shakes her head. "Xur, please be polite." To me she says, "Different pokémon can override aspects like that. Your vullaby is obviously young, Xur here is…" She looks at him, frowns and shakes her head once more. "Well he's obviously a lot older. Experience is often the deciding factor."

"I guess," I mutter, feeling a little foolish that I've overlooked that fact. I could have Mandy blanket the area in darkness, ridding everyone of their senses for a little while, but that wouldn't help me in this situation.

"So what's _your_ name then?" I ask. "And what do you even want with me?"

"My name is Nieve," she says, "and recently, I ventured to Accumula."

My stomach twists in a variety of knots that only sailors and scouts should be able to make.

"I know about the circumstances behind your journey," she says. Her voice is quiet, friendly almost, but that doesn't mean anything. It could just mean she wants to lure me into a false sense of security and then suddenly I'm being studied because I've seen a legendary or whatever they did to the people who saw them and then disappeared.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, managing not to stutter as I swallow the lump in my throat.

Nieve sighs and shakes her head. "I'm a police officer, working with the Unova Taskforce in the investigation into missing children."

More kids other than Craig have gone missing? Stupid, stupid. I should have looked into that - found a way or something. I keep telling myself I want to try and find him but then I never really do anything about it.

"We know that your friend was one of them and thus far, we have been unable to locate your family to ask you about it. We had feared that you were another case." She pulls out her phone once more and spins it in her hand, like it's an unconscious habit. "Marsha sent me Xur in the hopes that I could find a lead. Xur lead me to you."

"Oh," I say. "He's wrong then. I don't know what you're talking about at all."

She sighs. "If that's the way you want to play it, so be it." She pulls a card out from her pocket and leaves it on the table. "Here's my name and number. When you decide you want to find out what happened with your friend, as well as everyone else that's gone missing, give me a call."

As she vanishes in a flash of light, I stare at the card and wonder just how soon I can call without looking like a complete stupidhead.


End file.
